
Gop>TightN". 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BY WILLIAM ESTABROOK CHANCELLOR 



OUR SCHOOLS 

THEIR ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION 
448 PAGES PRICE $1.50 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

THEIR DIRECTION AND MANAGEMENT 
335 PAGES PRICE $1.25 



D. C. HEATH & CO.. PUBLISHERS 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

THEIR DIRECTION AND 

MANAGEMENT 



BY 

WILLIAM ESTABROOK CHANCELLOR 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

tECTURER ON EDUCATION, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, AND CHICAGO UNIVERSITY 

AND ON HISTORY OF EDUCATION, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. AUTHOR OF 

"OUR schools: their ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION"; "a 

THEORY OF MOTIVES, IDEALS, AND VALUES IN EDUCATION" 






BOSTON, U.S.A. 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 

1908 



Ill I 

LIBRARY of CONGRE^S.^ 

Iwo Cupies Keceiviy.' 

JUL 17 ISOb 

0uu.ynK7M c.i\inr 
Q\JiSi>. J % a/c. «o, 



-^1 X 



COPY 



Copyright, 1908, by 

WILLIAM ESTABROOK CHANCELLOR. 

All rights reserved. 



THE TEACHERS 

OF THE TOWN OF BLOOMFIELD AND OF 

THE CITY OF PATERSON 

IN THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

WITH WHOM I SPENT A DECADE OF HAPPY YEARS 

LEARNING WHAT THE PROFESSION OF 

EDUCATION MEANS 

IN TOKEN OF APPRECIATION AND 

CHANGELESS REGARD 



" But to the spirit select there is no choice ; 
He cannot say, This will I do, or that, 
For the cheap means putting Heaven'' s ends in pawn, 
And bartering his bleak rocks, the freehold stern 
Of destiny's first-born, for smoother fields 
That yield no crop of self-denyitig will ; 
A hand is stretched to him from out the dark. 
Which grasping without qtiestion, he is led 
Where there is work that he must do for God. 
* * * * * If 

Chances have laws as fixed as planets have, 
And disappointme7ifs dry and bitter root, 
Envy''s harsh berries, and the choking pool 
Of the world'' s scorn, are the right mother-milk 
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind. 
And break a pathway to those unknown realms 
That in the ear til's broad shadow lie enthralled i 
Endurance is the crowning qicality. 
And patience all the passion of great hearts ; 
These are their stay, and when the leaden world 
Sets its hard face against their fateful thought. 
And brute strength like a scornful conqueror. 
Clangs his huge mace dowti in the other scale, 
The inspired soul but flings his patience in, 
And slowly that outweighs the ponderous globe, — 
One faith against a whole earth'' s unbelief. 
One soul against the flesh of all 7tiankind.'''' 

— "Columbus": James Russell Lowell. 



PREFACE 

The present book follows an earlier one entitled Our Schools : 
Their Administration and Supe?-vision. In that book, I had in 
view communities of from five thousand population to forty or 
fifty thousand. In this, I have considered the larger cities. 

The true unit of all educational endeavor, the teacher and his 
class (or " school," as the group is known in many localities of 
the South and West), is not the same internally or externally in 
the great city as it is in the town or village. 

Similarly, the work of the superintendent is strangely changed ; 
almost equally changed is the work of the building principal. 

The city, the great city ever tending to become yet greater, 
is the insoluble problem of civilization ; its degeneration and 
collapse have hitherto been inevitable. Universal education may 
be the missing factor by which mankind is to solve the problem. 

It was my fortune about the time when Our Schools was pub- 
lished to change from the direction of public education in a 
community of twelve thousand population, within the metropoli- 
tan district with its millions of men, women, and children around 
New York harbor, to a community of one hundred and thirty 
thousand population within the same district and, in connection 
with that superintendency, to assume a lectureship in school 
administration in New York University. In less than two years 
after this change, it was my fortune to be placed in what may 
fairly be called a strategic position in relation to the progress 
of education by administrative changes, — the superintendency 
of schools in the National Capital at a time of revolution, not 
wholly wise, in fundamental school legislation. This revolution 
included the certification of teachers, hitherto not required ; 
assignment to the superintendent of the right and obligation to 
nominate teachers and janitors ; establishment of examining 



vi PREFACE 

boards for applicants for positions ; complete separation of the 
two races, white and colored ; creation of a board of education 
consisting of men and of women, white and colored ; divesting 
the board of all financial authority and vesting it partly in a 
school-house commission, but mainly in Congress ; and corre- 
lating for each race the many hitherto separate school divisions 
of the District. 

It has also been my fortune, as pupil and teacher, to know the 
schools of such widely separated cities as Dayton, Worcester, 
New York, Philadelphia, Lincoln, Bloomfield, Paterson, and 
Washington. Lastly, it has been my fortune to serve a town, 
a city, and a national government of unusual generosity in pro- 
viding funds and leaves of absence for personal observation of 
schools in other communities, so that I have been able to visit 
schools in a hundred and fifty communities, through a range of 
territory from Seattle to Boston and from Atlanta to St. Paul. 

This experience has emphasized in my mind that conclusion 
of German philosophy : The mechanism is of universal significance 
and conditions the success of the activities of the spirit} Contrary 
to many, I am obliged (by what I have seen) to hold that a 
correct school system is absolutely essential to good schools 
within the system. In the poor school system, the good school 
is an accident and is always in peril of destruction. In the good 
school system, the poor school is an anomaly and is certainly 
in process of reform and of improvement. In other words, I 
know that a good teacher cannot evolve a good school every- 
where, and that a poor teacher is growing better or is removed 
where the right system prevails. 

In view of the rights of men and women to labor in their 
accustomed occupations, I am not willing to go so far as to say 
that every child is entitled to the best available teacher ; but I 
do not hesitate to assert his claim to the best known methods 
and devices of legislation, of administration, of supervision, of 
discipline, and of instruction, to the end that whatever teacher 

J Lotze, Microcosmus, preface. 



PREFACE vii 

he has shall be able to do the best for him. Such is the power 
of teachers in every community, whether deserved or unde- 
served, that no superintendent who would reform the service by 
changing its personnel can long hold office. Nor would I divert 
the attention of educators from matters of pedagogical technique 
and of professional scholarship, though I am of the opinion that 
we neglect general scholarship and ignore the sure fruitioning 
of knowledge in motives, in ideals, and in judgments. But I 
mean to bring into the light of public attention and considera- 
tion the necessity that the incompetent teacher should accept 
the good system upon which the competent educator insists. 

How to require such acceptance is the problem of the educa- 
tional law-deviser and administrator. Too long have teachers 
in authority asked only better work from those under their 
authority. My proposition as a democrat is to look to the 
authority itself, and to improve the methods and the processes 
by which that authority expresses itself in State laws, in Board 
rules, and in the orders of educational directors. 

A book of this character is not designed for experienced city 
school administrators, but rather for students of education. 
Not a few of its remarks will seem needlessly elementary to 
critics. In some cities, there are certain features actually in 
advance of matters that, presented here in academic fashion, 
seem radical. No one city exemplifies all that is advocated, yet 
little is here proposed that is not a reality somewhere. I have 
meant to construct a system of principles. Of course, the 
annual report of the superintendent and board of a large city 
usually contains more material and touches more points than 
are considered here, and whatever I have said should be criti- 
cised in the light of common day. 

The receipt of more than five hundred personal letters from 
readers of my earlier book warrants me in acknowledging 
heartily the manner of its acceptance by the profession of edu- 
cators. I hope that this study, also, will prove helpful. 

W. E. C. 

Washington, D.C., 
January i, 1908. 



CONTENTS 



AND SYLLABUS OF CHAPTERS 

PAGE 

Preface v 

A correct system as necessary as correct educational methods. 

Chapter I. The State and the School . . . i 

The State is society organized as government, i. The' modern State is itself 
controlled by Property and Business, i. Educational activities of the United 
States Government, 2. A Secretary of Education of Cabinet rank, 3. Inequali- 
ties of educational opportunity in the various States, 4. Centralization within 
certain States, 4. The State legislature is really the highest school board, 5. 
The desirability of a strong State board of education, 5. Suggestions by way 
of sociological prognosis, 6. Powers of the State board, 7. Powers of the 
State superintendent, 9. Powers of the State board of examiners, 11. Com- 
parison of country and city, 12. The county, 13. Elective v. appointive 
^ boards, 14. Powers of the city board, 16. Comparative .interest taken in pri- 
vate benevolence and in public tax expenditure, 20. The two political tradi- 
tions, maximum and minimum of State power, 20. Geographic comparisons, 

21. Social comparisons, 21. True function (^private philanthropy, 21. The 
State as founder of the Universal School, 22ftJ The proper period of education, 

22. The educational progress of the individual, 22. Education is the solvent 
of the city slum, 23. The educational curriculum should widen and deepen 
with life, 23. 

Chapter II. The City School System . . -25 

Several ways of securing appointment as city superintendent, 25. Advantages 
of promoting a subordinate, 26; disadvantages, 26. Advantages and disad- 
vantages of the superintendent from outside, 29. The extent and rapidity of 
the work of the superintendency, 28. The duties of the superintendent, 28. 
The essentials to success, 29. Administrative organization of city school sys- 
tems, 29. Locus and ch^acter of supervision, 30. Vertical v. horizontal 
supervision, 30. The necessity for direction and supervision, 31. The nature 
of a school, 33. The principal as central authority, 33. The principal as an 
addendum, 33. Historical account of the two kinds of schools, 33. Central- 
ization V. individualization, 35. Advantages of the centralized school, 35. The 
principle of the educational continuum, 35. Disadvantages of the individual- 
ized school, 36, Housing v, educating the children, 37. The educational 
organization of a city school system, 38. Primary and intermediate schools 



CONTENTS 



V. Complete elementary schools, 40. Normal size of a school, 40. The great 
city school, 41. The salary problem, 42. A proposed schedule, 43, Basis of 
increase, 45. Promotional examinations, 46. 

Chapter III. The Business Officers of the City 

System 49 

The true way for a board to secure large authority, 49. Salary schedule of 
higher officers, 49. Responsibility and duties of the school attorney, 50. A 
warning to the secretary, 50. The business manager, 51. The work of the 
school architect is not less important than that of the school superintendent, 52. 
Competition for plans ineffective, 52. Either the school architect or the busi- 
ness manager should employ engineers and janitors, 52. Strictly civil service 
reform methods should control their appointments, promotions, demotions, 
transfers, and dismissals, 53. Cheap " help " and political " help " are too 
common, 53. Cleaning the building by contract v. Salaries to all janitors and 
assistants, 54. Schedule of salaries, 55. Separation of engineer service from 
that of the janitor, 56. Repair shops, 57. 

Chapter IV. The City School 58 

The schoolhouse, 58. Value of American schoolhouses, 58. The schoolroom 
unit, 59. So-called " extra schoolrooms," 59. The remedy for the present 
conditions, 60. Lighting, 61. Stairways, 5i. Cellar, 62. Desks, 62. Toilet 
rooms, 62. Ventilation, 63. Doors and windows, 63. Library, 63. Other 
requisite rooms, 63. Blackboards, 63. Double kindergarten, 64. Typical 
enrollment in city school, 64. The proper location of a schoolhouse is in a 
park, 64. Danger of too large a plot, 65. Competitions for plans, 65. The 
teaching complement, 65. Medical inspector and school nurse, 66. School 
librarian, 66. Duties of the principal, 66. The library of the principal, 67. 
The social influence of the principal, 68. Salary increases, 69. Organization 
of classes and grades, 70. Departmental teaching, 71. Comparison of the 
work of the city school principal and village superintendent, 72. Heads of 
departments in large schools, 72. Daily programmes, 72. Use of the assem- 
bly room, 73. Length of school periods, 73. Plan for department of four 
teachers, 75. The services of special teachers, 77. 

Chapter V. Equipment 78 

Comparative importance of buildings, of equipment, and of teachers, 78. Lan- 
terns and globes, 78, 79. Blackboards, 79. Exhibit cabinets, 80. Provisions 
against fire, 80. Telephone service, 80. The United States flag, 81. The 
manual training center, 81. The furniture should be substantial and artistic, 
82. The schoolroom desk, 82. Various items, 83. Flowers in the school- 
room, 83. Gas and electric lighting, 84. " Power," 84. Seating of the 
assembly hall, 84. Platforms, 85. Pianos, 85. Furniture for the art mu- 
seum, 86. Common sense is incompetent to furnish a schoolhouse properly, 
86. Who should pay for text-books? 87. " Listing" books and supplies, 87. 
Not enough books are now used, 88. The requisite qualities of a good text- 
book, 89. Estimated cost of equipment of loan text-books, 90. Free gift of 
other supplies, 91. School and class libraries, 92. Relation of the public 



CONTENTS xi 



library to the public school, 93. The kindergarten equipment, 93. Gymna- 
siums, 94. A good laboratory necessary in the elementary school, 95. A 
system of laboratories in high schools, 95. Schoolroom decoration, 95. A 
central building for teachers' classes and meetings, 96. Equipment of the 
rooms of supervisors and of other officers, 97, 

Chapter VI. The Pupil g8 

The pupil as the subject of school administration, 98. Principles of pupil 
collection, 99. The neighborhood as a factor in school location, 99. Early 
adolescence as the dividing time, ^'99. Sex as the dividing line, 100. The 
seasons as a factor in studies, loi. The effect of fatigue upon study periods, 
loi. ' Psychology v. Sociology, loi. The attempted uniformity, 102. The 
true test is displayed by psychogenetics, 102. The true school is a relation 
between two, 103. The outlook of the principal, 103. Growth v. Education, 
103. The limits of the true school community, 103. Four school groups 
recommended, 104. Age classification, 104. The fatigue levels, 106. The 
higher educational institutions of the city, 106. Its educational value the sole 
reason for introducing a subject, 108. Comparative maturities of children, 
108. Differentiation and integration essential in civilization, 109. 

Chapter VII. Special Schools . . . . , no 

School uniformity and its perils, no. Comparison of communities at the 
extremes of uniformity and of variety, no. Economy of a completely varied 
system, in. The so-called "democratic" objection to classification of chil- 
dren and of youth, 112. Ignorance of what education is, 112. The economic 
pressure for early completion of schooling, 113. Half-timing a necessity, 113, 
Complexity of modern life, 114. Special schools are complementary to the 
regular schools, 114. The evening school, 114. This school a makeshift needed 
in a transitional era, 116. Construction of schoolhouse for double purpose of 
day and evening instruction, 116. The high school building should accom- 
modate day, evening, atid half-timing pupils, 116. Text-books for adults, 
117. Trade-texts, 117. Programmes for evening school classes, 119. Corre- 
lation of instruction, 121. A vocation, an avocation, and a recreation are requi- 
site, 122. The school for defectives, 122, The normal and the variant, 123. 
Home is the keynote, 125. Principles governing admission to special day 
and home schools, 126. Qualifications of teachers, 127. A phase of the disci- 
pline difficulty, 128. The special school is a prophylactic against pauperism 
and criminality, 128. Wealth is incommensurate with humanity, 129. A 
charitable society is cooperative, 129. No child can be pauperized, 129. 
The source of wealth is labor-skill, not natural treasures, 129. Kinds of 
special schools required, 130. The parental school should be isolated but not 
inaccessible, 130. Congenital types, 131. The reformation school, 133. 
Qualifications of teachers, 134. Site and buildings, 135. Course of instruc-' 
tion should be characteristically physiological, 136. The juvenile court, 136. 
Attendance (compulsory education) officers, 137. Summer schools, 137. 
Evening lectures for adults, 139. Democracy requires broadly diffused knowl- 
edge, 139. Need of a new kind of schoolhouse, 141. Location and use of 
ungraded individual-help classes, 142. 



xii CONTENTS 



Chapter VIII. Programmes and Records . .145 

Importance of caring for the immediate future, 145. Conditions of a rational 
will, 146. The several values of records, 146. The school day to the child v. 
to the teacher, 147. A general daily programme for Grade IV, 148. A special 
daily programme, 148. Why records save time, 151. The plan book, 151. 
Vertical v. Horizontal courses of study, 152. Records required, 153. Analy- 
sis of the present opinion regarding marks, 154. Importance of complete 
records or else relying on present opinion only, 156. Contrast of urban and 
rural schools in relation to the home, 157. The argument against examina- 
tions, 158. The function of reviews, 159. Tests from the central office 
should be to equalize atid standardize work, never to examine pupils, 160. 
Preservation of the pupil's record, 160. Transfer of records on promotion 
inadvisable, 160. 

Chapter IX. Aids and Accessories . , . .162 

Home and school, 162. The process of decadence in the total progress of 
civilization, 162. Theory of the social institutions, 163. The process of de- 
cadence in the progress of human character, 163. Theory of the anti-social 
institutions, 164. Home and school center upon the child, 165. Effect of 
parental ignorance, 166. Character of present parents' associations, 167. Con- 
ditions of their successful establishment and maintenance, 167. The 
" mothers' club," 168. The city public education society, 169. Without con- 
flict, freedom dies, 169. Influence of the public press upon opinion, 169. Side- 
tracking of the superintendent, 170. Medical inspectors, 170. School nurses, 
171. Gang 71. Club, 172. Scheme of school clubs, 173. The secret society, 
174. The teaching of parliamentary law, 175. School athletics, 176. Their 
governing board, 176. Individualizing athletics, 176. Scheme for organiza- 
tion of teachers' associations for a large city, 177. 

Chapter X. Converting the Occupation into a 

Profession 178 

The superintendent is the intermediary between the School and the World, 
178. Lay-domination v. School-intrigue, 179. The schools as they are v. 
The schools as they may be made, 180. Dwelling in the house of the inter- 
preter, 180. Why the board of education should represent Culture, not Busi- 
ness, not Politics, 181. A "vicious circle," 181. Every good man is willing 
to be a public man, 181. Function of the board of examiners in converting 
education into a profession, 182. Its composition, 182. Character of examina- 
tions, 183. Competitive examinations for higher positions, 184. Villagers in 
cities as critics of its school affairs, 185. Examiners may "list" text-books, 
185. Eligible lists, 186. The open, optional text-book list, 187. Advantages 
of the board of associate superintendents as compared with several assistants, 
187. Teachers' pensions, 188. Municipal pensions, 189. The retiring board, 
189. Teachers' advanced courses, 190. The city normal school causes in- 
breeding, 191; and lowers salaries, 191. The " teachers' college," 192. Pay- 
ing for the financial support of apprentice teachers, 192. Practice-classes, 193. 
The teachers' council, 194. Various plans for its institution and organization, 
194. The principle of professional loyalty, 196. 



CONTENTS 



xiu 



APPENDIX 

PAGE 

A. i. Open Letter to Educators desirous of becoming Superin- 

tendents of Schools in Large Cities . . . .199 
ii. Open Letter to Members of Boards of Education and to 

Candidates for Board Membership .... 205 

B. The Annual Report 210 

C. The Food Question 214 

D. Forms : General Note 2i6 

i. Report of Supervisory Officer upon Condition of School . . . 218 

ii. Principal's Rating by Supervisory Officer 220 

iii. Requirements for Teacher's First License 221 

iv. Form of Temporary License 223 

V, Form of Permanent License 223 

vi. Examination Record of Candidate for Certificate . . . , 224 

vii. Form of Application for Endorsement of Diplomas and Certificates . 225 

viii. Teachers' Directory 227 

ix. Assignment of Teacher to School 227 

X. Termination of Service 228 

xi. Change of Name 228 

xii. Change in Salary Schedule 229 

xiii. Quality of Service 229 

xiv. Transfer 230 

XV. Experience 230 

xvi. High School Entrance 231 

xvii. Special Teacher's Rating by Supervisory Officer .... 231 
xviii. Recommendation by Supervisory Officers as to Teacher's Promotion 232 
xix. Form of Reference by Superintendent to Other Educational Authori- 
ties regarding Candidate . ■ 233 

XX. Notification of Retirement on Civil Pension 23s 

xxi. Absence with Pay 236 

xxii. Teaching Record 338 

xxiii. Substitute's Certificate 239 

xxiv. Transfer of Pupil out of City , 239 

XXV. Form of Application for License as Teacher . . . . . 240 

xxvi. Report upon Officers and Teachers 242 

xxvii. General Report on Teachers' Standing 243 

xxviii. Age and Schooling Certificate 245 

xxix. Medical Examination of Candidate for Appointment as Teacher . 246 

XXX. Notices of Transfer of Pupil within City 248 

xxxi. Application for Admission to High School 249 

xxxii. Record of Pupil's Attainments 250 

xxxiii. Poster Notice of School Registration Days . . . . . 253 

xxxiv. Otherwise " Lost " Pupils 234 

XXXV. Newsboy's Permit and Badge , 256 

xxxvi. Report upon Children wandering About , 257 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



D. Forms {continued) : page 

xxxvii. Absentees and Illegally Employed Children 257 

xxxviii. Parole and Probation Card 257 

xxxix. Poster Notice of Child Labor and Compulsory Education Laws . 258 

xl. Postal Card Notice of Truant or Absentee 258 

xli. Postal Card Notice to Attendance Officer and Reply . . . 259 

xlii. Evening School Admission Card 259 

xliii. Commitment of Child to Reformatory 260 

xliv. Notice of Absence from Evening School of Pupil within Compul- 
sory Education Age 261 

xlv. Exemption from Vaccination 261 

xlvi. Notice of Absence from School to Employer and Reply of Employer 262 

xlvii. Monthly Report of Attendance Officer 263 

xlviii. Hearing upon Case of Absenteeism 264 

xlix. Affidavit of Attendance Officer 265 

L Annual Report by Principal upon Evening School .... 266 

li. Notice to Attendance Officers of Commitment of Truant to Parental 

School 268 

lii. Recreation Center Report 269 

liii. Time Programme of Special Teacher 270 

liv. Report of Inspector of Lectures 271 

Iv. Time Programme of Manual Training Center 272 

Ivi. Report of Lecturer 272 

Ivii. Report of Kindergarten Mothers' Meetings 273 

Iviii. Report of Library, Evening Recreation Center .... 274 

lix. Instructions to Principals and Teachers in Evening Recreation 

Centers 275 

Ix. Literary Club Programme, Evening Recreation Centers . . 277 

Ixi. Vacation School Excursion Report 278 

Ixii. Report of Baths at Public School 278 

Ixiii. Principal's Report upon Band Music 279 

Ixiv. Form of Exclusion of Pupil apparently 111, by Medical Inspector . 279 

Ixv. Form of Municipal Report upon School Attendance to State Officers 280 

Ixvi. Teacher's Monthly Statistical Report 281 

Ixvii. History of Child Truant 282 

Ixviiu Statistical Account of Ages in Grades 283 

Ixix. Report of Medical Inspector 284 

Ixx. Observations on Child Proposed for Ungraded Class . . . 285 

Ixxi. Record of Pupil at School 286 

Ixxii. School Athletics 287 

Ixxiii. Authorization of Vaccination by Public Health Physician , , 289 

Ixxiv. Medical Report upon Defective Pupil 289 

Ixxv. Text-book Record for School Year 290 

Ixxvi. Voucher Schedule for Salaries 291 

Ixxvii. Voucher Schedule for Supplies 292 

Ixxviii. Official Billhead 293 

Ixxix, Inventory of Heating Apparatus and Service 294 

Ixxx. Card Record of Special Educational Articles 295 

Ixxxi. Card Record of Incidental and General Expense Fund . . . 296 

Ixxxii. Examination Record at High School Graduation .... 297 

Ixxxiii. Payroll Receipts and Audit 298 



CONTENTS 



XV 



Forms (continued) : 

Ixxxiv. Estimate of Needs for New Schoolhouse 

Ixxxv. Inventory of Construction Cost of Schoolhouse . . . . 

Ixxxvi. History of Site and Building . . . . . . . , 

Ixxxvii. Repairs to Schoolhouse 

Ixxxviii. Operating Cost of Schoolhouse 

Ixxxix. School Day Programme 

xc. Application for School Tickets 

xci. Report of Corporal Punishment Case 

xcii. Annual Report of Parochial and Private Schools to City Superin- 
tendent 

xciii. Postal Card Notice to Librarian 

xciv. Report by Special Teacher 

xcv. Form of Building Contract 



E. Constitution of a Schoolmen's Club 

F. Schedule of Salaries (Jersey City) 

G. A Real Superintendency 
//. Teachers' Pensions 

/. Bibliography .... 

Index 



PAGE 
302 
303 
304 
30s 
305 
306 
307 

• 307 

308' 
309 
309 
310 

319 

322 

334 
337 



THESES 

By developing various social institutions, under the 
protection of the State, democracy means to secure both 
the freedom of the individual and the welfare of society. 



In education, the purpose of democracy is to develop 
all the energies of all the people in order that, by becom- 
ing intelligent, efficient, and moral, they may all have life 
abundantly. 

In every respect, each school should express the wealth, 
the culture, and the goodwill of society. 



The educational curriculum should conform at the same 
time to the conditions of society and to the interests of the 
progressing individual soul. 

To save its own life, this democratic civilization is build- 
ing the universal school in many forms. 



Universal education, let us hope, is the only missing 
factor requisite for the permanence of civilization. 



As a social institution, the School requires direction and 
management by the profession of educators. 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

CHAPTER I 
THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 

By the State, we mean a society organized as govern- 
ment and controlled by force in respect to individuals and 
to other societies. The State has been conceived by some 
as practically synonymous with society^; but it is difficult to 
distinguish such a conception from State Socialism, a con- 
dition to which it must be admitted by all that no society 
has yet come. A State absolutely supreme means a de- 
pendent Church, a dependent Family, a dependent School, 
and a dependent Business, not to mention other social in- 
stitutions. We are growing out of such a State, as appears 
upon investigation of the history of our North European 
ancestors and also upon consideration of the heritage of 
South European culture. 

The individual is liberated in American democracy by 
the conflicts of numerous social institutions, each suffi- 
ciently strong to resist the encroachment of the others. He 
is not surrounded, circumscribed, confined by the social tra- 
ditions, but sets them against one another. He is free in 
a free society. He and society become free together. 

Vast and powerful as the State now is, one may seri- 
ously question whether that most ancient of human 
institutions. Property, is not really its master. This seri- 
ous question opens into the very heart of the issue between 

1 Bosanquet, Philosophical Theory of the State. Cf. page 163, infra. 
I 



2 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

private and public education ; an issue likely to grow in 
importance as the democratic State in America arrogates 
to itself more and more power over the lives of children, 
of youth, and of aspiring adults.^ 

The State manifests itself in certain famiUar forms, 
of which the chief is the Nation. Other forms of in- 
terest in the present inquiry are the State, the County, 
and the City. In each of these forms, American democ- 
racy undertakes to relate itself to the work of education. 

There is a widespread notion that the Government of 
the United States concerns itself but little with education, 
maintaining only a National Bureau of Education for the 
collection and distribution of information. As a matter of 
fact, however, the Government has many other educational 
activities. At great annual expense, it maintains the Naval 
Academy at Annapolis and the Military Academy at West 
Point. It costs almost as much a year to train a cadet for 
military service as it does to restrain a felon from criminal 
practices by confining him at public expense in a peniten- 
tiary. The American Government maintains free schools 
in the Philippines and in Porto Rico. It maintains the pub- 
lic schools of the District of Columbia and certain special 
schools, and makes an annual grant to higher endowed 
education there. It maintains the various Indian schools 
and makes grants to others that receive Indians. It oper- 
ates schools in Alaska. It instructs annually thousands of 
its soldiers and sailors and tens of thousands of its depart- 
ment clerks. In their practical operation, not a few of the 

1 For the distinction between Business and Property, and for the question whether Busi- 
ness may not yet oust Property from control of the State, vide A Theory of Motives, Ideals, 
and Values in Education, Chapter II. Singular as it may appear upon historical grounds, 
business, which began as a mode of acquiring property simpler than war, is to-day in several 
aspects the potent destroyer of property. For a discussion of the effort of Business to get 
control of the School, vide op. cit.. Chapter VII. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 3 

bureaus of scientific inquiry are apprentice training schools. 
It pays ;iS25,ooo annually to each State for the support of 
higher agricultural and mechanical education. It has 
given hundreds of millions of acres of land to endow the 
common schools in many States. It incorporates educa- 
tional and cultural societies. If all the educational enter- 
prises of the various Departments were concentrated in 
one Department of Education, and if all the educational 
laws in the National Statutes and all the educational rules, 
regulations, and courses of study of all its Departments, 
Bureaus, and Boards were brought together and system- 
atized, the Government would at once appear to be what 
it really is, the greatest single agency of education in all 
our lands. 

Because the proposition to establish a Department of 
Education with a Secretary of Cabinet rank ^ has not yet 
risen to the prominence of a political issue and because 
the Congress maintains the policy of leaving all local 
affairs of education to the States (though not to the Colo- 
nies or to the Dependencies or to the District of Columbia 
and not entirely to the Territories), most men and women 
outside of Government circles imagine that the United 
States is indifferent to educational enterprises. 

Whether this policy of decentralization in respect to 
local education is safe for the future of our people is 

1 The arguments against elevating Education to Cabinet rank are too familiar to require 
development here. i. We have too many Secretaries now: why not combine War and 
Navy, the defence and offence departments ? 2. The Secretary would change with political 
changes : do we wish life-tenure and all its incidents in that office any more than in the State 
or Treasury or Agriculture departments ? 3. Education is not a political matter to be 
fought over or affected by political methods : is not this equally true of finance, of postal 
service, of international relations? 

For a year or so after its establishment as such in 1867, Education was a Department. 

Whatever view we take, we should endorse actively the plan of a great Education Hall 
at the Capitol; a National Museum of Arts and Sciences as notable in quality as the Library 
of Congress and larger. 



4 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

gravely questioned by those who know the facts of illit- 
eracy, of inefficiency, and of immorality in certain of our 
States. It is the old issue of Nationalism versus Federal- 
ism ; and it involves a matter not less serious than that of 
Negro slavery. For its own protection, American democ- 
racy, working in its strongest mode, the National Govern- 
ment, may yet be compelled to standardize and to subsidize 
education through all the States, to relieve this illiteracy, 
this inefficiency, and this immorality of the " mountain 
whites," of the " swamp blacks," of the child-laborers, 
and of the slum denizens. It may yet be necessary for the 
strong hand of the central Government to take of our 
accumulating wealth that our men may not decay. 

A comparison of the school legislation of the various 
States and Territories of the Union reveals most striking 
differences. The greatest decentralization of authority by 
its distribution appears in Pennsylvania and the greatest 
centralization in Louisiana. The greatest local indepen- 
dence and variety of actual conditions prevail apparently in 
Massachusetts. New Jersey has a State Board of Educa- 
tion and also a State Board of Examiners of applicants 
for teachers' certificates. Some States have neither State 
Boards of Education nor State Boards of Examiners, while 
other States have only the latter, but style them by the 
other title. In examining the Statutes of a State, the first 
thing to determine is the meaning of such terms as board 
of education, county superintendent, and board of normal 
school control. Often when we think that we are discuss- 
ing the same thing, in reality, because these terms have 
various contents, we are discussing different things. 

The time may come when the United States Government, in par- 
ticular the Congress and the President, shall become in all the States 
what they now are to education in the Philippines, in the District of 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 5 

Columbia, and in the Indian Schools, the highest school board of the 
land ; but the time is already here when each State legislature is in 
reality the highest school board, the educational court of appeal in every 
State. Or the time may come when the School shall rise coordinate 
with the State, and independent of its political legislature, and have its 
own National board of education, subject only to the Constitution of 
the United States ; ^ but the time has already come in several States, 
when the State board of education is the correlate of the legislature in 
government. In such a season, the National board of school control 
will have for its members mostly educators, as now the National legis- 
lature has mostly lawyers.^ The only safety for democracy is its 
acceptance, indeed its encouragement, of the services of experts. The 
democracy, however, will choose its board members by ballot at special 
fixed elections as it now chooses the members of its legislatures. Of 
course, such a conception is an attempted prevision of the future ; but the 
signs are not wanting of its advent in this century of brilliant promise 
for the development of the social institutions to larger usefulness. 

Whatever may be said of the merits of the argument for 
a National board of education or whatever may be said of 
the merits of the lesser proposition to make a Cabinet 
Secretaryship of the present Commissionership of Educa- 
tion, the desirability of a State Board of Education as well 
as of a State Superintendent or an officer of equivalent 
powers but some different name is not seriously questioned 
by those who are familiar with the records of the States 
now maintaining such bodies. 

There are two standard ways of creating these State boards : — 

1. Appointment by the Governor. 

2. Elevating certain city superintendencies and other educational 

1 This view is presented solely as a quasi-teleological mode of testing the direction of 
present educational tendencies. 

Thinking of our Congress and of our State legislatures as instances of representative 
democracy, we delude ourselves. Neither grade of legislature represents all classes of the 
people. Nine-tenths of all members of Congress and of our State legislatures are representa- 
tives of the law; that is, of government itself. Centuries hence, society may come to com- 
plete or universal institutions. In such case, the boards of health, National, State, and 
Municipal, will be composed of physicians. 



6 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

positions into board rank by making their occupants members of the 
State board ex officio ^ 

Where the State board is appointed but the State superintendent is 
elected, the latter may better make the appointments to the board than 
the governor or a court. 

A Study of the State laws in all the States shows that 
the School is everywhere in transition and in development. 
When it goes free of the State, it will have its own special 
legislature, laws, officers. Obviously, this will include a 
superintendent or some educational director otherwise 
entitled. Consequently, the election of a State superin- 
tendent is probably closer to the stream of tendency than 
is his appointment by an appointed board of education, 
itself dependent upon the political governor of a State. 

This conception involves the elevation of the Constitu- 
tion of a State and of the Constitutional Convention into 
even higher importance than now. We may perhaps think 
of the community within State lines organized in some such 
way as this, viz. : — 

Constitution of Society 

A B C D etc. 

State Church School Trades 

(government) (religion) (education) (livelihood) 

The Society would have its constitutional convention. 

The State would have its legislature. 

The Church its synod or other central governing body. 

The School its board of education. 

The Trades their central house of delegates. 

The constitutional convention, meeting (say) every quar- 
ter century, would be composed of the direct representa- 
tives of the people ; while the legislature would be com- 

' To the present time, this has succeeded admirably in Indiana. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 7 

posed of lawyers ; the synod, of ministers ; the board, of 
educators ; the house, of mechanics ; etc. 

The foregoing is not presented as in detail prophetic 
of what the future has in store ; but as affording a means 
of testing a special question that is part of a general ques- 
tion. The latter is this : — Does American democracy 
involve as its logical outcome the reduction of every 
social institution to the majordty control of laymen ? ^ The 
special question is this : Is the board of education to become 
a board of educational experts ; or do indications point to 
the abolition of boards and the erection of a strictly educa- 
tional hierarchy with a sole director at its head.? Other 
phases of this question will occur to every one who cares 
for social prognosis. 

A State board may have the following powers, viz. : — 

I. To appoint — 

i. A State superintendent.^ 

ii. A State school architect. 

iii. A secretary, 

iv. An attorney. 

v. A State attendance officer, 

vi. A State medical supervisor. 

For the present, in the older States, the most practical 
plan seems to be to have a State board of education ap- 
pointed by the governor of the State, composed of from 
seven to twelve members, serving for terms of not less 

^ The great agitation in England and in the United States in favor of lay inspection of 
all scientific research involving animals is a case in point, and a warning. 

2 It is held in some quarters that the board of education should have the power to confirm 
or to reject the nominations of this officer and of those who follow ; but the best practice un- 
questionably is that the subordinates in each case should be absolutely in the control of the 
superior. If the chief makes improper nominations, he should be removed. Otherwise, a 
board wastes time over these matters of subordinates. In the newer States, the superin- 
tendent should be elected ; but qualifications should be prescribed for eligibility to the office. 



8 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

than three years or more than five. In the newer States, 
the State Board should be elected at large by the people 
at a special election, for terms of (say) four years, and 
should be smaller than the appointive board, (say) four or 
six members.^ The validity of this distinction consists in 
the difficulty of dealing with the Eastern tradition of dis- 
trust of democracy and the Western development after the 
rise of confidence. 

2. To determine finally, without reference to State 
courts, all appeals from the decisions of the officers named 
under i. 

3. To receive, file, and print the reports of these officers. 

4. To control all State normal schools. 

5. To control all State reform schools for persons un- 
der twenty-one years of age.^ 

6. To inspect, in the persons of their appointees or of 
themselves, any and all schools of all grades and descrip- 
tion, — public, fiduciary, parochial, and proprietary, — and 
to regulate such features as upon examination are deemed 
prejudicial to the interests of the pupils or otherwise in- 
jurious to the public. 

7. To establish and control new State universities, col- 
leges, institutes, or other higher institutions of learning for 
the benefit of the entire State.^ 

8. Upon the recommendation of the State superintend- 
ent, to apportion in whatever manner is deemed expe- 



1 Vide page 16, infra, for a discussion of the reasons why appointive boards should be 
twice or three times as large as elective boards and operate through a small executive com- 
mittee or some committee of similar powers but otherwise designated. But whether ap- 
pointive or elective, the State board should organize itself into as few committees as possible. 
Vide Our Schools, page 44. 

2 There are good reasons to advocate their control of all prisons, jails, penitentiaries, and 
reformatories. 

8 This means, of course, that the State superintendent is to name their heads. The board 
of education controls salaries and other expenditures. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL g 

dient the annual State grants arid taxes for the current 
expenditures or permanent improvement of local schools.^ 

9. With such penalties as they consider appropriate, to 
compel municipalities to improve their schools in course 
of instruction, in architecture, in sanitation, in salaries, in 
number, in equipment, or in general maintenance, so as 
to meet definite standards fixed by the board. 

10. To fix minimum salaries for any and all who work 
in the public schools. 

11. To serve as a State school-taxing body, to raise such 
funds as may be prescribed by the State constitution and 
the State laws, and to accept and administer as trustees, 
legacies, donations, and other benefactions designed to 
promote the cause of public enlightenment.^ 

12. To expend moneys.^ 

13. As a corporation, to transact all this business and 
all similar business reasonably contemplated by its title 
and powers, whether general or specific. 

The State superintendent should be the executive agent 
of the board and, in cooperation with the State school at- 
torney, should enforce all the powers indicated in the fore- 
going enumeration; and in addition should have the power: 

1. To appoint — 

i. A deputy superintendent. 

ii. State supervisors (or directors or inspectors), 

iii. The heads of the State schools, 

iv. Other subordinates. 

2. To remove any educational worker — whether teacher 

^ As a general proposition, the State should secure from corporation, inheritance, and 
ground rent taxes, enough funds to pay from one-third to one-half (but not more than one- 
half) of all the costs of local education, including that of schoolhouses. 

2 Pending the time when the School and the State shall be entirely separate in legislation. 

2 The State board of education may properly occupy its own office building separate from 
the political Capitol. 



10 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

or board member — for any one of three reasons: i. gross 
moral obliquity ; ii. dishonesty ; iii. definite act of disloy- 
alty to the cause of education. 

3. To appoint a State board of examiners of applicants 
for teachers' certificates, to be valid in any and every mu- 
nicipality, in every public State school, and in any and all 
private schools. 

4. To visit in person or by officially designated repre- 
sentative any school whatever. 

5. To make standard courses of study for all schools 
and to enforce minimums and maximums: such as num- 
ber of pupils per teacher, number of text-books used, 
amount of instruction afforded in essential studies. 

6. To report to the board of education annually, and 
also whenever special occasion arises, such matters as may 
appear of moment.^ 

What corps of subordinates the State superintendent may require 
will depend largely upon whether or not there are county superintend- 
ents. But he will certainly need supervisors for higher educational 
institutions, for normal schools, for high schools, for elementary schools, 
for private schools, and for the various studies. 

The State schoolhouse architect should make standard 
plans for buildings and should lay out grounds. He should 
examine plans for all buildings, additions, and repairs, and 
no bonds should be issued or other funds secured or their 
proceeds expended without his certificate that the plans are 
satisfactory. In his own person, or by deputy, he should 
inspect all buildings and important additions in course of 
erection. For this work, he will require an adequate corps 
of assistants and adequate funds. 

The secretary to the State board should keep the 

1 These will include professional and clerical assistance in his own department ; new legis- 
lation; school conditions, general and special; enterprises under way or contemplated. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL II 

minutes of its proceedings and of its various committees. 
These minutes and proper journals, together with all other 
records and official documents, should be properly filed; 
and these archives should be preserved in absolutely fire- 
proof conditions.^ 

The secretary should conduct all the correspondence of 
the board.^ 

As for the attorney, the attendance officer, and the medi- 
cal inspector, their duties are such as are indicated by their 
titles.3 

The foregoing scheme is offered rather as a criterion of judgment than 
as a plan for any special State. I advocate a great central authority 
rather than several separate authorities ^ such as generally prevail. I 
am aware that there are certain advantages in separate control as for the 
State university, the State normal schools, teachers' certificates, etc., but 
the loss of the special interest of the isolated and independent authority 
is more than counterbalanced by the great powers and the understand- 
ing of relations possessed by the single authority. Government has its 
governor and legislature and highest court ; education needs similar 
simplicity of control. 

The State board of examiners should have the following 
powers : — 

I. To estabhsh the standards and to examine appli- 
cants for teachers' certificates. 

* It is not enough that the framework of the building be fireproof: the whole interior 
must be fireproof, — floors, " woodwork," which should be steel or other non-combustible ma- 
terial, and the files themselves. The loss or disappearance of documents has damaged, even 
wrecked, many a promising administration as it has injured many a business enterprise. 

2 The State superintendent, however, and not the secretary to the board, should be its 
executive officer. 

3 For comparison with the duties of similar officers in city systems, vide Chapter VIII, 
infra. 

* In the text, I have used the terms " State superintendent of public instruction," and 
" board of education." Personally, I prefer the terms " State director of education " and 
" State regents of education" (or " State board of school control"). Vide Our Schools, page 
II. The term " commissioner of education " has been used to designate both educators and 
laymen. It is, therefore, confusing until defined. 



12 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

No person who has not a State certificate should be allowed to teach, 
in regular schools, pupils within the ages of compulsory attendance. 

2. To reexamine for higher certificates. 

No person should be eligible to any educational position, not even a 
city superintendency or a private academy principalship, until he holds 
the publicly approved and recognized certificate of fitness. By this 
provision, teaching will be made as true a profession as law, medicine, 
and theology. The certificates must be as few as possible, but should 
include the State superintendency itself and membership upon the 
board of examiners.^ 

Save where more qualifications for teachers are needed than those 
required by the State, all local boards of examiners and all local certifi- 
cates should be abolished ; but there should be established several con- 
venient places in the State for the taking of examinations. All locally 
controlled normal and training schools should be placed under the sole 
and positive direction of the State. ^ 

3. To cancel certificates for cause properly deter- 
mined. 

Such reforms would clear the ground for the proper 
work of local superintendents and boards of education. 

In the present development of American government, 
the county is gradually losing its serviceability. Whether 
for good or for evil, as a people we are ceasing to be rural 
and are becoming urban. Even in our remaining rural 
sections, we are tending away from the open country and 
are once again villagers. Man is by nature gregarious. 
The immense populations congested in the tenement and 
slum districts and in the many-storied apartment build- 
ings of our great cities are but twentieth-century mani- 
festations of the same human spirit that has animated the 
hordes of earlier times in other lands. In the strict- 

^ The time may come when such certificates will be required of members of the State 
board of education, 

- Certificates now held should, however, be valid for the terms and upon the conditions 
set forth therein. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 1 3 

est interpretation, there is no sueh thing as humanness 
in isolation.^ The soul cannot be educated in soHtude. 
But the sessile city multitude more than the locomotive 
field horde oppresses the individual, who often requires 
emancipation by escape to the "solitude where none 
intrudes." 

The county was a convenient geographical division of 
government in ages when society was agricultural. It 
helped develop man from his pastoral condition into the 
agricultural. Similarly, the chartered municipality — the 
village, the town, and the city — is encouraging his de- 
velopment from the agricultural to the machinofacturing 
industrial life of this modern time. Good roads, tele- 
phone, and rural mail delivery may discourage the move- 
ment of men into communities ; yet the delay will make 
the final social structure only the more solid and sub- 
stantial. 

As a political form, the county may serve certain minor 
purposes for a century to come ; but even now, in most 
States,^ it serves no important purpose in education that 
cannot be better served either by the central government 
of the State or by the immediate local municipality, the 
school district proper. 

The city as a school district presents the phase of 
education that is most interesting to the general public, — 
a fact that should not blind professional educators to the 
paramount importance for the present of the State laws 
and executive officers. 

The large cities of our land have more population and, 

1 Comenius said that " only by a proper education can one become a man," and then pro- 
ceeded to describe education as in great part association. The Great Didactic, Chapter 
XVI. Also vide A Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values in Education, Chapter XXII. 

2 The exceptions are certain Southern States that have few towns and no cities of consid- 
erable size. 



14 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

therefore, wealth ^ than most of the States. Their adminis- 
tration is more difhcult to understand than is the adminis- 
tration of States, because they are examples of hnperiiim in 
imperio. To know the city, we must first know the State. 
Sometimes, we must study also the charter of the city. 

The principles that apply to the selection of board 
members for the boards of great cities are more closely 
analogous to the principles that should govern States than 
they are to those which should govern towns, villages, and 
rural districts. 

The reasons why " party " lines should not be followed 
in selecting State board members are the same which 
show that party lines should not be followed in selecting 
city board members. The major reason is that the State 
is one social institution and the School is another ; there- 
fore, the same considerations do not apply. The minor 
reason is that politics (I use the term here in its deroga- 
tory sense of personal intrigues and party conflicts relating 
to government) seldom aim at placing the best man in a 
position ; he does not need to resort to politics. It follows, 
therefore, that when School elections take place at the 
same time as State elections, their issues being popularly 
considered of minor importance, are confused with, and 
subordinated to, the political issues. Obviously, whether a 
man is a Democrat or a Republican or a Socialist or a 
Prohibitionist or a Laborite in politics does not materially 
affect his value as an " educator." ^ 

1 Statistically, I mean The land values of a city, which make so large a portion of its 
total " wealth" are due entirely to the population and are fictitious, therefore, in the sense 
that they do not produce wealth, but merely serve as means for converting such wealth as is 
produced by labor and capital into property for the landlords. 

2 In the press despatches of a newspaper syndicate the members of a certain State board 
of education were styled " educators." And this is quite right. A board member to-day 
can do more for or against education than the superintendent. Vide McAndrew, Looking 
for Trouble. Also, "Open Letter to Board Members,'' Appendix A, 2, ijifra. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 1 5 

But practically for many a year to come, in most States 
and in most cities, board members — that is, the ruling 
educators — will be voted for on Democratic and Repub- 
lican tickets or appointed by Democratic or Republican 
mayors ; and their elections or appointments will be deter- 
mined upon partisan political considerations. There is very 
little benefit to anticipate from tinkering with boards year 
after year in this fashion. Occasionally the nominating 
conventions will choose " good " candidates or the mayor 
a " good " man (" good," that is, because he will think 
primarily of the good of the school pupils and will be 
competent in his thinking); but the general stream of 
tendency will be to use the schools for the advantage of 
the political parties. It cannot be otherwise. What we 
need is not the so-called " spasm of civic interest in edu- 
cation," but the complete separation of education from 
government in their practical operations.^ 

Under the State constitution, the State board of educa- 
tion, the State board of examiners, the State superintendent, 
and the other State educational officers, the city school dis- 
trict should be developed substantially in the following 
manner : — 

1. The board of education should be a body corporate 
to control the city as a school district coordinate with, but 
entirely distinct from, the political city. 

In other terms, education should be diiferentiated from government 
and separately integrated in order that it may perform its social func- 
tions without bias because of political considerations. 

2. This board should consist either of a considerable 
number of men — from twelve to eighteen — appointed by 

1 Several cities have tried bi-partisan boards. Buffalo has tried no board at all, leaving 
the financial affairs of the schools in the control of the aldermen. This entire matter should 
be considered carefully in the light of the history of the State of Louisiana. 



l6 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

the mayor for a term of three or four years or of a small 
number of men — from four to seven — elected at large 
for a term of four or five years. 

The important principles involved here are seldom discerned and 
recognized at their true value. The appointive board represents no 
constituency : each member is the personal choice of one man. In 
order fairly to represent public opinion and to lead it forward, the ap- 
poifitive board jmist be large. Indeed, an appointive board of thirty or 
more members with an executive committee of seven is none too large for 
service in a democracy. But every member of an elective board repre- 
sents a majority of the constituency that elected him. The elected 
board should be small, (say)yf'y^ members.^ The entire board represents 
fairly the general public opinion. In view of the large powers that 
should be vested in a city board of education, the people have a just 
right to choose its membership directly. But in the present state of the 
average individual intelligence of city voters, this right to choose is sel- 
dom coincident with a true power to do so. On the other hand, the 
mayors of our large cities are scarcely more to be trusted than the body 
of voters. The opinion actually held by educators of competence and 
experience will differ radically so long as American cities differ so 
greatly in the intelligence and character of their voters. I favor the 
small elective board, but my reasons are based upon my own experience 
with appointive boards. 

The board should have the general powers already im- 
plied ; and in addition the following specific powers : — 

3. The power to bond the city for new sites and build- 
ings without limit and without reference to any other 
municipal governing body. 

^The recent history of St. Louis and of Boston amply justifies the opinion in 'the text. 
When each board member serves but three years and comes up for renomination and reelec- 
tion with but one other man, there being usually no more than four or six candidates in the 
field, then the public can scrutinize each man thoroughly. It is extremely desirable, it is in- 
deed so essentially necessary as to be imperative, that the nominations should be by petition 
and the election at a separate date from the political elections. 

New York City now has a board of forty- five members by appointment of the mayor. 
There is some agitation by the Public Education Society in favor of a reduction to fifteen 
members. In this instance, the executive committee feature of the plan has been considered 
unsuccessful. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 1 7 

Education is at once a necessity of the present and an investment for 
the fhture. To limit its permanent plant is to limit the progress of 
mankind. 

4. The power to tax the city for current costs without 
limit and without reference to other governing bodies. 

Indeed, the State board of education should have the mandatory 
power with sanctions fixed to compel a city board to do its duty when 
derelict. 

5. To own and to control in every particular as against 
all other city authorities the school buildings, sites, and 
apparatus. 

6. To appoint a city superintendent from an eligible list 
furnished by the State superintendent or a person accept- 
able to him and to the State board of examiners. 

7. To appoint a business manager. 

8. To appoint a secretary. 

9. To appoint an attorney, 

10. To appoint an attendance officer. 

11. To appoint a school architect. 

12. To appoint a treasurer. 

13. To appoint an auditor.^ 

* It is one of the inscrutable features of my experience as a superintendent for a dozen 
years that I have found the "business men" of city boards of education more willing to 
allow the business officers in the foregoing list (that is, all except the superintendent, and 
perhaps the attorney) to appoint all their subordinates than to allow the professional men to 
do so. But notwithstanding this experience, it is my opinion that the public welfare demands 
that laymen must keep their hands off from the appointments of teachers as well as of clerks; 
they should not have the power to confirm or to reject nominations or the power to vote upon 
dismissal. I have seen teachers blackmailed under threats of suggesting dismissal. This is 
a worse form of corruption than taking fees for suggesting or effecting appointments. It is 
my hope that when we come to demand educational qualifications for board members (vide 
Our Schools, pages 14 and 16), we are likely to exclude the men who do not see the reason 
why every subordinate should serve but one master, his official superior. In a certain city, 
an assistant superintendent defended his treachery to the superintendent by saying that he 
owed loyalty not to his chief but to the board, and that when a difference of opinion arose 
between the superintendent and himself, he had a " perfect right " to appeal to the board 
and attempt to influence it against the superintendent. 



I8 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

14. To establish whatever schools, departments, and 
kinds of education it considers likely to promote the cultu- 
ral progress of the community. 

15. To receive, file, and print such reports of these 
officers as it may be requested so to do.^ 

16. Under the provisions of the State constitution and 
the rules of the State regents of education to levy taxes for 
local school purposes. 

17. Similarly, to issue bonds for permanent school im- 
provements, including purchase of lands. 

18. To fix and pay salaries at or above the State mini- 
mums. 

19. To accept and administer as trustees legacies of 
property, donations, and other benefactions designed to 
promote the cause of local public education. 

20. As a public corporation with a seal, to transact all 
this business and all business of a similar nature reasonably 
contemplated by the erection of the corporation.^ 

The city board of education should be organized with 
as few committees as possible. A small board, such as the 
elective board should be, requires no committees at all. A 
larger appointive board may have three : — 

1. An executive committee (or styled, ways and means). 

2. A committee on buildings, sites, and janitors. 

3. A committee on miscellaneous and new business. 

In no properly conceived city school system is there any 
call for committees on teachers, or on courses of study, or 

1 The board should not have any power whatever to revise the report of the superintendent. 

2 To those who care to follow out these matters to their logical conclusions and thoroughly, 
I suggest reading the following annual reports of board and superintendent: New York, Cleve- 
land, Boston, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, There is need of a work that from the administra- 
tive point of view will clearly yet briefly describe about twelve city school systems compara- 
tively. In the New York report for 1907 (pages 9-14) there is a clear summary of these 
powers. The Cleveland board appears to have nearly all the powers indicated in the text. 
The variations, however, are significant. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL I9 

on sanitation, or on evening lectures, or on compulsory 
education. All these matters belong to the administrative 
employees. Because they are the employees of the board, 
they are already subject to the board in all these and in all 
similar matters. For the board or for any members to 
interfere in details is clearly reprehensible. 

In general, the function of the city board of education 
is to govern the schools : to regulate them as the governor 
of the steam engine regulates and steadies its action. Its 
function is not to manage the schools. It is to control, to 
oversee, to assist rather than to direct education. In this 
capacity, a good board can be invaluable. In any other 
capacity, even a good board is perilous to the true educa- 
tional interests of a community, while a bad board is 
pernicious. Irrespective of the private character and gen- 
eral abihty of its members, no board can be " good " that 
tries " to run the schools." 

Fortunately in a large city, so vast is the enterprise that no board, 
however bad, can destroy a good educational system before it is dis- 
covered and obstructed by general public opinion awakened by the 
conscientious activities of the educators in the city. But unfortunately 
the converse is true, that in large cities the ablest of superintendents 
and the best of boards can do but little in any one year to redeem the 
past when that has been going steadily from bad to worse. 

In the view presented as to the nature of the relations 
of the State and of the School, the most important feature 
is the horizon Une of the limits of free public education. 
In actual practice in the various States, this horizoja line 
tells significantly the heights of the various points of view. 
As an economic matter, it is not important whether a mill- 
ion dollars is provided annually for education from general 
taxation or from particular properties isolated for the pur- 
pose of paying over their earnings to education. The 



20 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

taxation does not fall upon all citizens alike. But in both 
the political and the social relations, it is of much impor- 
tance how the annual fund is provided. 

Any private benevolence secures an amount of public attention far 
beyond that given to an equal tax-expenditure. We have heard year 
after year a vast deal about the good accomplished in Southern educa- 
tion by the Peabody and the Slater funds ; yet single American cities of 
but a half million people spend annually more than the total endow- 
ments of these philanthropies combined. The invested funds of Har- 
vard or Columbia can be expressed in totals of impressive magnitude. 
The State universities cannot capitalize the good will and the good 
faith that cause the annual appropriations of the legislatures. On a 
five per cent basis, the concern of New York City in its schools may be 
roughly estimated at five hundred million dollars ; that is, a philanthro- 
pist undertaking so to endow the New York system of public schools as 
to withdraw their costs from general taxation would need to set aside a 
property equal to one-half that of the entire United States Steel Cor- 
poration. With all his wonderful benefactions, Andrew Carnegie has 
done only one-quarter as much. 

A philanthropist in the East or South may give one million or ten 
millions of dollars of the general wealth that he owns to the cause of 
education and may determine what grade or form of education may be 
served thereby ; and he is assured of the plaudits of public opinion and 
of the generous approval of succeeding generations. In these regions, 
the public man who should propose to assign from State or local taxes 
an amount equal to five per cent upon such capital funds for education 
must be prepared to fight for his cause ; and to be defeated. West 
of the AUeghanies, in the newer region with its keener democracy, he 
can hope to win and may win. 

There are two political traditions, — one that the State 
shall do only what private philanthropy will not do and 
shall do this only upon stern necessity put to the proof ; 
the other that the State shall do whatever is for the general 
welfare. The first is the tradition of the East and of the 
South ; the second is that of the North beyond the Appa- 
lachians and of all the trans-Mississippi country. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 21 

The East and the South compromise with the second 
tradition by estabhshing not a few scholarships to send 
needy pupils to the endowed institutions and by special 
grants. The West and the North compromise with the 
first tradition by encouraging private endowments in rivalry 
with the public universities. 

But to the student himself or herself there is a tremen- 
dous difference whether the entire education from the kin- 
dergarten through the professional school is afforded by 
the State. It colors one's patriotism red or white whether 
the State provides all the range of educational opportunity 
or does not.^ And this difference between the final obli- 
gations of loyalty East and West will in generations to 
come record itself more and more clearly in the American 
character. 

Socially, one who is graduated from Harvard or from 
Vanderbilt is at the antipodes from one who is graduated 
at Michigan or Nebraska. The private endowment means 
as a matter of tradition education in sex-isolation ; the 
public maintenance means sex-association, " co-education." 
The exceptions merely demonstrate the rule. One who 
pays no tuition in the endowed universities is a favored 
individual, who must feel more or less regret; but all 
students are on the level plane of recipients of the public 
bounty in the public [university. 

The true functions of private philanthropy appear to be 
to establish experiment stations and to do work supple- 
mental to that of the State, while the true function of the 
public enterprises is to supply the approved best for every 
general need and interest of society. 

The question as to how far the education afforded by 

^ An endowed corporate university operating under State laws is in that degree a quasi- 
public (political) enterprise, Butler, Educational Review, December, 1907. 



22 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

the State shall go is already answered. Whatever boys 
and girls, men and women, need to learn, whenever and 
wherever they need to know it, that the State constitution 
should enable the public school to provide. This includes 
all trades, all professions, all arts, all knowledge. The 
only questions to be asked by the State are : Is this need 
gj(od .-• Is this person competent to receive this instruction .-' 
J The term of school-going at the expense of the State is 
not the age of fifteen or the age of eighteen or the age of 
twenty-one, but school-going in a democracy that aspires to 
serve mankind is zvitJwut term. Therefore, every State 
needs normal schools, colleges, universities, trade schools, 
agricultural institutes, and every other proper institution 
of education ; and it needs enough of them at convenient 
points within its borders to supply all the demands. 

The duration of public education is, therefore, any time 
within the educable period of individual human life. But 
within a certain portion of this educable period, the process 
of education must be rigidly and universally applied. 

We may divide this period into that in which intelligence, 
efficiency, and morality ^ are developed and that in which 
these are applied to science, to art, and to philosophy for 
the further extension of human culture. The first portion 
may be said to end at eighteen or nineteen years of age. 

These evidences of the progress of the individual in edu- 
cation are successive and become simultaneous only at the 
end of the period of educability. Intelligence begins with 
activity of the mind in observation and proceeds to literacy, 
an absolute essential in modern civilization. Efficiency 
proceeds to apply intelligence to the doing of things, the 
performing of services, the making of products. And 
moraUty directs the efficiency of the soul and of the body 

• Vide A Theory of Motives, chapters thus entitled. 



THE STATE AND THE SCHOOL 23 

to the systematic accomplishment of what is worth while 
by methods beneficent to human society. Our war is 
for illiterates, to make them literate ; for the literate- 
inefficient, to make them efficient ; for the literate-efficient- 
immoral, to make them moral.^ A moral man who is 
inefficient and illiterate is an impossibiHty. In the pres- 
ence of a vast, difficult, and dangerous civilization, whose 
meaning is only now being slowly won by the masses 
of mankind, — European peasants and African savages 
now in process of redemption into American citizenship, 
— the illiterate and the inefficie7it are necessarily immoral. 
How can one possibly do right who has neither the intelli- 
gence to discern the right nor the will to realize it ? 

Therefore, education must be absolutely universal for 
the youth of our country, — that all may learn to see facts 
and truth, to rejoice in effort, and to love what is good. 
Thus education redeems both the city slum and the remote 
wilderness. 

As for the variety of the methods and of the subjects of 
education, this must increase with every year of the life 
of the individual until he is ready to specialize. The cur- 
riculum of the kindergarten is designed to train the obser- 
vation and to direct the energies of the child, and may 
and should be closely prescriptive. The curriculum of 
the high school has widened out as a fan widens. Here 
we are teaching morality through sympathy with the many 
concerns of man, and particularly his culture. And in the 
university, we open wide the doors of the higher and larger 
world, saying, " Enter in and add what you can." 

In any proper conception, all this range and all this 
duration of instruction are well within the duties of the 

^ " It follows therefore that he who is sent to school must be kept there until he is well in- 
formed, efficient, and pious." Comenius, The Great Didactic, Chapter XVI. 



24 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

superintendent and board of education of any and every 
State and of every large city. By other conceptions, pri- 
vate philanthropy is exalted above public duty, and the 
obligations of Property are elevated above the opportuni- 
ties of Government.^ 

1 One who advocates emphasizing the duties of private philanthropy must logically favor 
such legal conditions for property and business as will conduce to large private wealth ; while 
one who advocates emphasizing the duties of government in education will logically favor 
conditions that will make the burdens of general taxation easy by distributing wealth gener- 
ally. In the terms of universal history and of the progress of civilization, the question here 
implied is interesting and significant. The relation of this question to that of religious obli- 
gation is obvious. 

One of our difficulties is that many have not yet risen to the conception of Aristotle as 
expressed in the Politics, — " That which contributes most to the permanence of constitutions 
is the adaptation of education to the form of government," and therefore oppose public school- 
ing, and that others are anchored at the point where they see in private (?) schools (including 
universities) mere anachronisms, while a few have grown wise enough to see that democracy 
is too large a matter to be confined within a pyramid whose granite walls are governmental. 
One may indeed desire that the State shall be paramount, as the best mode in which men may 
obey the command, — " Come, let us reason together," without regarding the State as sole. 
The way out of these misunderstandings of one another, because we are of various " ages" of 
social evolution and of political belief, is to resolve the situation into its elements, to think 
through to the conclusion, and then to try to develop every kind of school to its maximum, 
rejecting only such as cannot adopt the catholic philosophy of democracy itself. 

It may indeed be that East and West have parted ; if so, they should become generous 
rivals, intent upon displaying all the good essentially inherent in each of these radically 
different schemes of social organization. The view of the text is that they may yet ultimately 
be reconciled in the Universal School. If so, each will have made important contributions, — 
the public political school and university may transmit the graces and the usefulness of the 
institution that lives by social favor ; the endowed school and university, the inner forces 
and substantial freedom of the institution that lives by rights and privileges. There is com- 
fort in the faith that, in the education of to-day, there is seen only 

" The baby figure of the giant mass 
Of things to come at large." 
— Nestor (speaking), Troilus and Cressida, I, i, Shakespeare. 



CHAPTER II 
THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 

There are two recognized ways by which one now 
comes to the superintendency of schools in the large city. 
Such a superintendency may be described as an office in 
which in fact one is held responsible for conditions beyond 
the possible range of his personal knowledge and author- 
ity. It exists of necessity where the number of teachers 
exceeds two or three hundred; and it consists in being 
obliged to rely for information as to facts upon intermedi- 
ate officers. 

Were it not for the accepted correctness of this defini- 
tion, there would be but one way by which to come to the 
superintendency of the large city with its thousands of 
teachers and hundreds of other employees. 

Formerly, there were three ways to secure an appoint- 
ment to the city superintendency: first, to succeed more 
or less in something else and to get the office by influence, 
— political, social, economic, family, religious, — any way to 
get it ; second, to succeed in a lesser educational position in 
the city and to use this as a fitlcrum to get the final and 
the highest office; and third, to succeed in a superinten- 
dency in another city, presumably smaller, and to be "called 
higher." 

With the rise of educational convictions and the appear- 
ance of the educational conscience, it seldom happens now 
that any one is elected superintendent of schools in a large 
city because he was once postmaster or public attorney or 

25 



26 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

pastor of a church ; and it will happen less frequently in 
the future than it does even now. 

The arguments for the appointment of an assistant 
superintendent or a principal within the system to a vacant 
superintendency are three. All of them are designed to 
invalidate the foregoing description of the city superintend- 
ency. The first is that, in his subordinate local office, the 
candidate acquired large famiharity with the persons in the 
force. This is true ; and thereby he acquired the preju- 
dices that make so difficult the work of administering a 
really large school system. " Once a colleague, always 
one " may fairly be asserted.^ The second argument is 
that the subordinate knows the traditions of the schools, 
while the stranger must grope blindly for months, and per- 
haps for years, trying to find out what methods, what 
principles, what ideals are actually in control and in use. 
The third argument is that the subordinate has learned the 
work by watching his superior do it. In short, though the 
last incumbent was actually in office, every person near 
him was as good as in the office. These latter reasons (or 
arguments, as they easily become upon expansion) have a 
certain air of validity when the traditions are good and 
the last incumbent was successful. The chief disadvan- 
tages are two : First, the man who has won (or has been 
given) promotion is usually a popular or a political favorite. 
He feels that he can hold favor only by obeying popular 
or political opinion. Seldom is he willing to inaugurate 

1 In a certain city, a teacher, after being appointed supervisor, appeared for five or six weeks 
unable to perform any of the duties of the office. When asked what the trouble was, she re- 
plied: " You see, these teachers are ladies; I meet them socially. I cannot give them orders. 
Besides, I know how they feel when they receive orders. I have been a teacher myself." 

Another instance is this: A superintendent who had risen from the ranks, when asked 
why he did not issue a certain order, said, " The principals and teachers will never stand for 
it." He was then asked, " But it is absolutely necessary for school progress, is it not ? " To 
this, he replied, " And holding my position is absolutely necessary for my livelihood." 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 27 

measures of reform or of progress. He must listen to his 
supporters. Second, he has seldom been a student of the 
larger issues in education. He may be a college graduate, 
but in only the exceptional instance has he pursued gradu- 
ate courses for years. In other words, it is not likely that 
he has either the courage or the knowledge requisite for 
the responsibilities of the office. ^ 

The third way of reaching the large city superintendency 
is becoming more and more common. The reasons for 
this are obvious. 

By whichever of these two routes one reaches the posi- 
tion of control of several hundred or of several thousand 
employees, the first matter to which one must give atten- 
tion is this : To discard promptly the notion that one 
knows anything about the work to be done. The peril of 
the man who has risen from a supervisorship or from a 
principalship is that of becoming a supervisor or a princi- 
pal expanded large, while the peril of the man who is 
transferred from one city to a greater is that of thinking he 
has the old city expanded large. The real situation is that 
the superintendency is in no sense a great supervisorship 
or principalship, and that one city differs from another city 
far more than one town differs from another town. There- 
fore, while the first business of the elevated principal is to 
learn what a superintendent should do (chiefly, lay railroad 
track into the future), the first business of the transferred 
superintendent is to find out what his city is (that is, learn 
his primary terminal station from which he is to lay track 
to the next). 

To either man, the discovery that he must push on 

^ Probably few boards of education ever take these factors into serious consideration: cer- 
tainly few do so unless forced to consider them by local students of education at a time when 
the superintendency is vacant. Vide Chapter XV, Our Schools. 



28 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

rapidly, that through his office the current flows fast, that 
it is " now or never," — that he cannot read all his mail 
carefully, cannot give a proper hearing to every caller, 
cannot visit the particular teacher or school that needs 
him, cannot see every board member, cannot keep in close 
touch with every newspaper, cannot answer every critic, 
and must neglect opposistion and details and trust to main 
force and his general policy, -=- this discovery of his own 
littleness in so great an opportunity comes with a shock 
of surprise and regret that he must not allow to disconcert 
him. Here the wisdom garnered of experience tells or 
fails. The man who worries over past mistakes, real or 
fancied, is making the worst of all possible mistakes, — 
misusing the present moment that alone counts in human 
life. 

In the normal city of considerable population in which 
the board of education owns and constructs the school 
buildings, makes the budgets, and levies the school taxes, 
the superintendent has the sole direction and charge of the 
immediate affairs of education, which may be summarized 
as follows : — 

1. Nominating, promoting, transferring, and discharg- 
ing every educational subordinate, — of all associate and 
assistant superintendents, directors, supervisors, principals, 
specialists, teachers, librarians, kindergartners, clerks, and 
whoever else controls, teaches, assists, or substitutes in any 
school or schools of the city. 

2. Making, revising, and enforcing all courses of study 
in every city school. 

3. Selecting all apparatus, text-books, educational sup- 
plies, and general equipment relating to the school work. 

4. Controlling all health officers and school nurses and 
similarly controlHng all attendance officers. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 29 

5. Advising in respect to all new buildings, to all addi- 
tions, and to all important repairs. 

6. Representing publicly the educational policy of the 
city. 

7. Distributing the duties of all subordinates, dispos- 
ing of correspondence, and issuing annual, monthly, and 
special reports.^ 

The superintendent does not do everything himself. In '' 
his own understanding of this fact lies " his chance of 
success," and in the public understanding of it lies the dis- 
position of the city toward the office itself. I say " chance 
of success " considerately, for the real superintendent has 
at best only a chance of success. By failing to be a real 
superintendent in crises, one may hold office for years ; 
but the history of city superintendencies — very interest- 
ing reading for the main part — shows that the office is 
legally too weak in authority for any substantial grounds 
of hope for permanence of the person in it.^ 

To success, one of the essentials is a proper number and 
organization of assistants. The best approved hierarchy 
is this : — 

1 . S uperintendent . 

2. Board of Associate (Division) Superintendents. 

In coordination, 

3. High School Principals. 



Elementary School for 
Group Principals. 



3. Directors of Special Subjects 

through all Grades. 

H-. Supervisors of Subjects in Spe- 
cial Grades. 

5. High School Teachers (day) (evening) f Special subject 

6. Elementary School Teachers (day) (evening) \ teachers. 

7. Kindergartners. 

^ Vide Dexter, History of Education in the United States, page 196, for a significant 
summary of actual conditions in many cities. 

2 No man who for any reason is removed from the superintendency should allow himself 
to take a subordinate position in the service ; and no man, taking a superintendency, should 
give any former superintendent any place in the administration. 



30 ' OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The critical points in this assignment are three, viz. : — 

1. There should be enough division superintendents^ 
promptly to dispose of all central office affairs and of all 
the referred local affairs. In a general way, it may be 
said that one division superintendent is required for every 
three to five hundred teachers. Each associate superin- 
tendent should have two offices, one in the central hall of 
administration, the other in the locality to which for the 
year he is assigned. The assignments should be changed 
every year.^ Every important matter, general or local, 
should be discussed in the weekly board of supervision 
meeting and regularly determined and recorded there. 

2. Every principal should be a supervisory non-class- 
teaching officer, and should have about twenty -five teachers 
in his special control. The principal to whom there are 
assigned more than thirty teachers needs one non-class- 
teaching department head for every twenty class teachers. 
Where school buildings are comparatively small, with but 
six, eight, or ten teachers, they should be grouped in twos, 
threes, or fours under one principal. The school or group 
principal should be required to go about among his classes 
and to give daily two or more hours of instruction, spend- 
ing the rest of his time in supervision, in direction, and 
in executive and clerical duties.^ 

3. The directors and supervisors should be of such 
superior accompUshments that they may safely be given 
control of methods of instruction within the field of their 
jurisdiction. With the exception of kindergarten and 
lower primary grade instruction, the supervision and direc- 
tion should always be vertical and should express the 

1 Vide page 188, injra. 

' They are to be counsellors and advisers of the local officers, not directors of detail. 

* Vide Our Schools, page 181. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 31 

nature of the intellectual continuum., the progressive pro- 
cess by which the child grows into maturity. Horizontal 
supervision by grade specialists, cross-sectioning the 
classes, is an unfortunate duplication of effort where there 
are competent superintendents and principals. 

The question arising from the foregoing propositions as . 
to whether the large city with six or a dozen or a score of . 
high schools shall have a high school director or an associ- 
ate superintendent assigned to that field is actually an- 
swered already. The board of associates as a whole should 
supervise all normal, high school, and collegiate instruction, 
perhaps assigning some one or two of their number to 
gather special information. This, indeed, should be the 
attitude toward the elementary schools, — that the one dis- 
trict assigned to the particular associate for a year is 
assigned to him as a representative of the entire body. 
And as far as possible, the particular principal of the par- 
ticular school is to be its public head, its authority in all 
save the most important and the most general matters. 

Supervision needs to come close to the teacher and to 
report immediately to the superintendent. 

The question arising upon the face of these propositions 
as to what subjects shall have supervisors or directors 
needs some explicitness and detail in its answer. 

Supervisors are needed for all subjects extending ver- 
tically through several schools and under teachers regularly 
in charge of class rooms. These subjects may conveniently 
be grouped as follows, viz. : — 

1. Mathematics. 

2. History and Geography. 

3. English. 

Directors are needed for all subjects extending through 
more than one range of school courses and taught by per- 



32 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

sons not regularly in charge of classes. These subjects 
are as follows, viz. : — 

1. Science and Nature-study. 

2. Art and Drawing. 

3. Music. 

4. The Mechanic Arts and Sciences (applied). 

5. The Domestic Arts and Sciences (applied). 

A third class of subjects need heads of departments. 
Such subjects do not extend beyond one school course, and 
are taught ordinarily by regular class teachers. These are 
as follows, viz. : — 

1. The Ancient Languages. 

2. The Modern Languages.^ 

3. The Commercial Arts and Sciences. 

The directors and the supervisors need assistants who 
shall take particular subjects vertically up and down 
through all the grades. Unless penmanship is to become 
a lost art, unless reading, already lost, is not again to 
be known, such special supervisors are absolutely neces- 
sary as assistants to the general supervisor of English. 
The number of such assistant supervisors will depend 
upon the special needs of the special community, for one 
feature of supervision is never for an instant to be lost 
sight of, — supervision aims to bring the poorer work up 
to standard. It is, therefore, required most for the new 
incoming subjects and for neglected old but meritorious 
subjects.^ As to another aspect of the matter of the num- 
ber of assistant supervisors, another principle of super- 
vision is not to be lost sight of, — supervision is never to 
displace teaching, but only to correct and to assist it. For 

1 Where these languages are begun in Grade VII or Grade VIII, directors are advisable. 
Where German is taught from the primary grades up, a director is necessary. 

2 Vide Our Schools, Chapter XII, which presents the theory of supervision in relation 
to the course of study. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 33 

want of observing these two principles, at many points 
there is much useless supervision, and at other points there 
is often lack of supervision that is wofully needed. 

In many parts of the country, there is a total failure to 
understand what a school really is, and therefore for what 
the principalship stands. This failure may be easily ac- 
counted for. The district one-teacher school may grow 
in either of two ways, — (i) by adding a new teacher and 
a new room and by thinking of the new arrangement as 
the collocation of two schools ; or (2) by adding an assistant 
teacher with or without a new room, and then thinking of 
the new arrangement as but two sections or classes of 
one school. The tests as to which thing really exists after 
this growth are whether the old and the new teacher get 
each the same or about the same salary; whether each 
teacher has the power of admitting and discharging 
pupils ; whether one teacher has any authority as to the 
selection and retention of the other; whether one has 
jurisdiction over the topics studied, the methods pursued, 
and the devices used in the class room of the other; 
and whether one or both report to the next higher school 
authority. 

It is true that in actual practice, in large cities, entire 
schools or collections of schools are assembled at one 
time so that there is no historical succession in appoint- 
ment, but all teachers are appointed at one and the same 
session of the governing authority. However, in such 
cities there are always the custom and tradition as to the 
relations of the various appointees, and usually definite 
rules and regulations upon the subject. 

In the practice of large cities, we find two extremes. 
Of these, one is that where the principal literally controls, 
manages, directs — is the entire school, and the teachers 



34 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

are his assistants. Such a school is often housed in a 
building with a large study hall surrounded with small 
class rooms, to which the pupils go from period to period 
for instruction by the teachers there. In such a case, usu- 
ally the salary of the principal is two or three times that 
of the assistants. The school community and the superior 
school authorities regard him as the real teacher, though 
actually he may not give instruction daily for as much as 
one period to any class, or even preside as the teacher in 
charge of the main study hall. Here all the children 
speak of "going to the school of Mr. (or Professor) Cad- 
mus" or "of going to the Lincoln School (or to School 
Number Forty-two)," and seldom speak of their indi- 
vidual class teachers. Often, indeed, even for primary 
instruction, they go to the class rooms of several different 
teachers : to Mr. Arnold for their reading lesson, to Miss 
Wright for their history, and so on. Here, each teacher 
is more or less of a specialist, with one, two, or three sub- 
jects in charge. This kind of school prevails in New 
England and in the South, wherever the Protestant Eng- 
lish tradition is strong ; and its history, to be traced easily 
in the records, is as instructive as it is interesting. 

The other extreme is that where there is no study hall 
or assembly room, but all teachers are in entire charge of 
their own special classes or " schools " as they are often 
called. In this case the building has two, four, ten, twenty 
or more rooms, usually of equal size. Upon coming to 
school, the children go directly to their own rooms. They 
talk only of their teacher for the term or year. In this in- 
stance, the plan of one teacher in each room and for each 
class extends even through the high school. In the ex- 
treme cases of this type, the building has not even a head 
teacher, and as a matter of course, no supervising princi- 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 35 

pal.^ An entire city will have no general officer save the 
superintendent himself ; and he will be a clerk and an ex- 
ecutive rather than a supervisor, because there falls upon 
him the entire burden of clerical and administrative details. 
Between the excessive concentration and centralization of 
the first type of school and the excessive dissipation and in- 
dividualization of the second type, there is apparently little 
to choose. In some instances, the teaching staff in the 
centralized school will receive one body of children in the 
morning and teach them for three or four hours, and another 
body of children, equal in number, for three or four hours 
in the afternoon. Similarly, the various teachers of the 
building with individualized schools may receive one set 
of children in the morning and another at eleven or twelve 
or one o'clock. The oppression of teachers and the rob- 
bing of children of proper amounts of time in school and 
of preparation for instruction out of school seem to be 
as common and as easy to maintain in one case as in the 
other. But when progress is actually desired, it is almost 
always easier to accomplish with schools of the first type 
than with schools of the second; these seem to be the 
reasons, viz. : — 

1. In such a school, there is a leader who can argue for 
the additional teacher or course of study, who, by virtue of 
his primacy, represents the other teachers, who is ac- 
cepted in the school community as the principal, indeed, 
as the visible school, and who really knows what the true 
needs of the school are. 

2. The principle of the educational continuum is properly 
incorporated in the course of study, in the promotions, and 
in the other features of the school organization ; and the 
relation of the additional teacher or subject to the prog- 

1 Vide Our Schools, page 177, for the argument in favor of the supervising principal. 



36 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

ress of the individual child is so apparent as to be appreci- 
ated quickly by the general public. Moreover, there is 
one person to place the new teacher properly or to enforce 
the new study. 

3. The advantage to the city in one respect is obvious : 
the superintendent has a select body of advisers, not so 
large as that of the entire teaching corps and of a higher 
average quality. 

Two reasons are not affirmative (for this type of school), 
but negative (against the other type). 

4. Where all the teachers are isolated in equality with 
one another, the first teacher added without a class is 
resented as a supernumerary, a critic, an inferior in quan- 
tity of work, an alien, and the forerunner of the overseeing, 
inspecting, and undesired principal. Any differentiation 
of duties beyond the assignment to various grades is op- 
posed as the beginning of the overthrow of democracy 
and of the establishment of aristocracy or of hierarchy. 

5. While it is easy enough to slough off any studies or 
exercises not favored by the individual teacher, there is 
no machinery provided for adding studies and exercises 
to meet the changing conditions of the social environ- 
ment. 

In practice, the higher educational institutions accept 
or tend to accept the extreme first type, while the lower 
schools drift toward the second almost everywhere. For 
this type, the two reasons most frequently assigned are 
that the child is confused by meeting more than one 
teacher, and that two or more teachers cannot agree as to 
how much time daily the child shall give to each of them. 
The countervailing reason that in schools of the first type, 
because the children have two or more teachers each day, 
therefore they have the same teachers for two or more 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 37 

years, and that this longer acquaintance is almost neces- 
sary to the educational continuum is sometimes not under- 
stood. 

In cities with schools of the first type, it matters little 
whether the buildings are large or small, few or many ; 
but in cities with schools of the second type, or with 
schools of intermediate character, this matters much. A 
school of the second type may have three or four primary 
classes, no grammar classes, and several high school 
classes : it is in truth not a school but a collocation of 
schools. The problem of good school organization to-day 
is the reconciliation of the two plans, — rejecting the weak 
feature of low-salaried " assistants " in the first, and the 
weak features of no policy for want of a head in the second. 

The first question that a growing city should ask, if it is 
willing to be progressive and to ask any questions at all, is 
whether it desires real schools, full of a school spirit, or 
whether it means simply to house the children; i.e. to 
shelter them in rooms. In other words, strange as it may 
sound, the kind of education proposed should determine 
the kind of building, its size, and all its other features. 
When school-keeping is the object, the mechanical problem 
is simple. Upon the basis of (say) 40 or 60 children per 
teacher, how many rooms are required for (say) 200 or 
2000 children? Such a problem, of course, denies that 
education is an art for experts ; but political authority in 
a democracy is by hypothesis not vested in experts. All 
that the educators can do is to try to convince "the 
authorities." 

In the large city, there should be institutions presenting 
the entire educational continuum from the kindergarten up, 
and including every important profession, trade, and occu- 
pation. No man is properly educated until he knows weU 



38 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

some righteous means of livelihood. To educate every one 
properly is to cut away the materials of vice and of crime 
in their earliest manifestations. Incidental to the complete 
education of the good in school is the immediate segrega- 
tion and isolation of the bad in reformatories and asylums. 
This is an educational programme worth fighting for. 

The entire educational system of the large city would, 
therefore, include the following, viz. : — 

1. A university for the professions. 

2. Colleges of the sciences and liberal arts. 

3. Institutes for the trades and industrial arts. 

4. High schools. 

5. Grammar schools. 

6. Primary schools. 

7. Kindergartens. 

This means, of course, an entire education of every one 
for life as an adult in the institutions of Property, of Family, 
of Church, of State, of Occupation, of Culture, of Charity, 
of War (if need be), of Business (if need be), and for 
Society conceived as a whole ; in other words, it means 
complete education at the general expense. This proposi- 
tion, familiar enough in Nebraska or in California, has not 
yet been heard everywhere. It means education from the 
age of five or six years to the age at least of eighteen with 
graduation from a trade, to perhaps twenty-two or three 
with graduation from a profession. 

Obviously, all the administrative problems of such a 
school system cannot be discussed in the space proposed 
here; but the problems of most importance at this stage 
in the discussion are : How many grades of schools shall 
there be below the city colleges ? and. What shall be the 
standard size of each kind of school .'' 

These questions may be expressed more definitely, the 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 



39 



first in this form : In which of these schemes shall the 
schools below the city college be arranged ? 



Grade 


A 




B 


C 




XV f Part of 
XIV {college 


XV " 
XIV. 


Part of 


XV " 




College 


XIV 


High 
Srhnnl 


xiin 




XIII' 




XIII 


XII 


High 


XII 




XII 


'kj\^i.x\j\JJL 


XI 


' School 


XI 


■ Secondary 


XI 




X 

IX '■ 
VIII 




X 
IX 

. viir 




X 
IX 

VIII. 


Intermediate 
" School 


VII 




VII 




VII 


VI 


Elementary 


VI 




VI 1 Elementary 


V 
IV 


"School 


V 
IV 


■ Primary 


V 1 School 
IV . 


ni 




in 




Ill 1 


II . 




II 




II Primary 


I 


Kindergarten 


I 




I 


I 



And the second in this form : Is it desirable to bring 
together in one building as many or as few classes as 
possible ; and shall the classes be graded annually, semi- 
annually, or quarterly ? ^ 

Clearly, the definite answer to this second question de- 
pends partly upon the answer to the first. And clearly, 
also, the practical answer to the second depends partly 
upon considerations not in the least educational but wholly 
economic. 

Scheme A is prevalent in the United States ; unknown .elsewhere. 
Scheme B is like that in France. It is represented in not a few success- 
ful private and endowed schools in our own country. ^ Scheme C is as 
yet theoretical, though it now has strong advocates.^ 

1 It is entirely feasible to grade a large elementary school in quarterly promotions : this is 
desirable for the pupils. But if the teachers repeat the grade work four times in one year, 
their intellectual ruin is certain and soon. 

2 E.g. the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, in New York City. 

^ Cf. the Philadelphia Central High School with that proposed here. 



40 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The arguments for an intermediate school of three or 
four years between the high or secondary school and the 
primary school are several. First, it is educationally de- 
sirable to isolate boys and girls of the ages of eleven to 
sixteen (typically, twelve to fourteen in a three-year inter- 
mediate school) from both younger and older pupils, for 
their own sake and for the sake of these other pupils. 
Second, the plan is convenient in the arrangement and 
location of the schools of a large city. 

The unit of the scheme may be as follows, viz. : — 

For each high school 
(say) four intermediate schools as feeders. 

For each intermediate school 
(say) two elementary schools as feeders. 

For each elementary school 
(say) two primary schools as feeders. 

Third, by this plan, the small children will have but 
short distances to walk in getting to their kindergartens 
and primary grades, while as they grow older, they will 
have relatively longer distances. 

Are there limits, minimal and maximal, beyond which 
numbers schools should not go ? It would appear so. 
There should be enough classes to secure good grading 
not less often than every half year. The highest class 
should be reasonably large and of a single half grade. 
An intermediate school on this plan would be normally as 
follows, viz. : — 

Grade IX, B (prior to graduation) 40 pupils 

Grade IX, A 42 pupils 

Grade VIII, B 45 pupils 

Grade VIII, A . 48 pupils 

Grade VII, B, 2 classes, each 26 pupils 

Grade VII, A, 2 classes, each 30 pupils 

In all, 8 classes and 287 pupils. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 41 

A schoolhouse to accommodate these 8 classes would 
require an assembly hall and at least 14 rooms : 8 class 
rooms, I boys' manual training room, i girls' manual train- 
ing room, I library, i laboratory, i exhibit (museum) room, 
and I gymnasium. Obviously, it would be more economi- 
cal to construct a building for 600 pupils than for these 
300, because in this case the arrangement would be as 
follows, viz. : — 

Grade IX, B, 2 classes, each 40 pupils 

Grade IX, A, 2 classes, each 42 pupils 

Grade VIII, B, 2 classes, each 45 pupils 

Grade VIII, A, 2 classes, each 48 pupils 

Grade VII, B, 3 classes, each . . . . . -35 pupils 

Grade VII, A, 3 classes, each 40 pupils 

In all, 14 classes and 575 pupils. 

This school would require an assembly hall and at least 
20 rooms : 14 classrooms, i boys' manual training room, 
I girls' manual training room, i library, i laboratory, i 
museum, and i gymnasium. But why not double this 
unit again ? It might be well to do so ; yet to double it 
would mean to double the so-called " extra " rooms, for 
there are but (say) 30 periods a week in which the manual 
training rooms and the gymnasium are available for class 
use. To give each class two periods a week, accommo- 
dates 15 classes. A larger school would mean, therefore, 
two manual training rooms. There would then be two 
gymnasiums, one for each sex, a desirable feature. The 
boys and the girls should have at least four periods each 
week in the gymnasium and in manual training ; and prac- 
tically the classes for proper instruction must be kept 
small. On the other hand, to enlarge the plan so as to 
accommodate 1200 pupils or 2400, or, as in the largest 
cities, 4800, means opportunity to provide at but slight per 
capita expense many extra rooms of great convenience 



42 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

to teachers and to pupils, such as science laboratories, 
lecture rooms, departmental libraries, special-trade school- 
rooms, sick-rooms, baths, parents' reception rooms, art and 
drawing rooms, and music rooms.^ The only limits are 
those established by the wealth and the culture of the 
community. 

As a general proposition, however, it may be said 
safely that every child should know and be known by 
the educational director of his school. Few principals can 
learn in three or four years the dispositions of over 800 
or 1000 pupils; half such a number is better. In our 
laudable effort to get some fair salaries for school officers, 
we have sometimes vastly exceeded these numbers while 
still retaining the notion that the principal is the educa- 
tional head of the school and not merely an administrator. 

It is this genuine conflict between the educational prin- 
ciples that should govern a city school system and the 
practical administrative and economic necessities that 
generally do govern it that has occasioned most of the 
troubles involved in salary schedules. 

There are two general problems, — the various rates 
of salary in the different grades, and the annual increases. 
Unfortunately, the mmimums and the maximums of sala- 
ries are still governed by the demand not of educational 
experts for competeiit teachers and by the supply of such 
teachers, but by the demand of laymen for and by the supply 
of those who represent themselves as teachers. Our schools 
are not yet professionalized or even unionized against the 
incompetent.^ 

It is harder to teach forty-five large boys and girls than 
twenty-five kindergarten children or forty-five primary 

1 Vide Annual Reports of the Superintendent of School Buildings, New York, 
^ To unionize them means to render their educational control impossible; but it does help 
salaries. Vide page 194. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 43 

children ; and it requires more preparation both before 
beginning to teach at all and for the daily teaching. But 
it requires more natural gifts and more pedagogical skill 
to teach the small children than the larger. In the highest 
years, scholarship is almost all-important ; in the lowest 
years, art. When j^iooo is a fair salary for a kindergartner 
managing without an assistant forty-five children for four 
hours a day, then ^2000 is a fair salary for a high school 
teacher instructing thirty pupils for five hours a day.^ 
From one end of the country to the other, we are paying 
beginners too little because we are taking half -prepared 
apprentices and giving them altogether too much responsi- 
bility. Unfortunately, we cannot reach the seat of the 
trouble; we cannot yet control entrance into the pro- 
fession. There is too much sympathy with taxpayers and 
too much with the girl who needs a salary ; and there is 
too little sympathy with parents and too little with the 
pupils who need an education. 

Though the high school teachers should receive more 
salary than intermediate school teachers and these more 
than primary teachers, all teachers in the same school, 
male and female, irrespective of the year or grade in 
charge, should be upon the same schedule for the same 
number of hours of teaching. As a basis of criticism, I 
submit the following scheme, viz. : — 

For Classroom Teachers ^ 

The 6-year secondary school . . 

The 3-year intermediate school 

The 4-year elementary school 

The 3-year primary school .... 

1 As matter of fact, often we pay $600 to a kindergartner who manages twenty-five chil- 
dren with an assistant for three hours a day, and (say) $750 to a grammar grade teacher who 
alone manages fifty pupils five hours a day. 

2 This does not contemplate any supervision of the work of any other teacher. 



INIMUM 


MAXIMUM 


lOX 


30;tr 


Sx 


2SX 


yx 


i8r 


6x 


I2;ir 



44 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 



When by;trwe mean $ioo, which is little enough, then 
the kindergartner beginner would get $600 and the high 
school veteran $2500. The fair questions now are : How 
long shall the kindergartner wait for the maximum ? How 
long shall the high school teacher wait? Shall the in- 
creases be automatic or conditional ? If conditional, what 
shall the conditions be ? 

As a matter of general experience, this will probably 
be accepted, that such teachers begin and reach their best 
years of service at the following ages,^ viz. : — 





beginners' age 


BEST SERVICE 


In the secondary school . 


23 years 


40 years 


In the intermediate school 


22 years 


36 years 


In the elementary school . 


■ . 21 years 


33 years 


In the primary school 


20 years 


30 years 



It will no doubt be accepted by all that, once the 
maximum is reached, it should be kept until the pension 
period with honorable retirement is reached. And it will 
probably be agreed that the maximum^ should be reached 
before the best years of service are attained, and not after 
the physical powers have begun to decline.^ Very small 
increases, prolonged into actual old age, are an injustice 
to the public servant and to the public taxpayer alike. ^ 
Again, it should be possible to secure the increases annu- 
ally until the maximum is reached. 

On this basis, I propose this scheme for increases, 
viz. : — 



1 This averages both men and women. The variation between the men and women in 
the years of " best service " averages twenty per cent, men teaching best at 45 years and 
women at 36 in secondary schools. 

2 With both men and women in classroom positions the decline is now unduly early for 
want of the sabbatical year of rest with pay. 

3 Similarly, too low a beginning salary is an injustice to both teacher and taxpayer and 
also to parents and pupils. 



INCREASE 1 


AGE 2 


I X 


38 yr, 


\x 


34 yr- 


u 


31 yr> 


ix 


28 yr. 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 45 



In the secondary school, annually 
In the intermediate school .... 
In the elementary school ..... 
In the primary school 

The foregoing propositions are not likely to be contro- 
verted or even seriously opposed by educators. But there 
is no general agreement as to how the fitness for the 
increase shall be determined. Many laymen, especially 
the politicians in large cities, assert that every teacher 
not discharged should be increased until the maximum 
is reached. Some educators hold that promotions in sal- 
ary should be determined solely by the success of the 
teacher in the class room. I submit the following proposi- 
tions : — 

1 . The increase should be granted always except in the 
cases when substantial evidence that it has not been earned 
or deserved is on record. 

2. Such evidence should be evaluated carefully to de- 
termine whether it establishes (a) mere unfitness for the 
increase, {d) deserved transfer to another school, or {c) ac- 
tual incompetence with warrant for discharge. 

3. This evidence should be (a) cumulative,^ {d) supported 
by not less than two superior officers acting severally and 
jointly, and (c) written at the times averred. 

4. It should be weighed over against evidence of pro- 
fessional study, to be tested by examination or other 

1 It may be noted that when x = $ioo, the annual increase is $75 for the teachers of the 
youngest children, $80 for the next two schools, and $100 for the teachers of the highest 
school. These increases are worth trying to get. When school-teaching has become a pro- 
fession, jv will be $200 or $250 in large cities. 

^ Average at time of reaching the maximum. 

^ A certain city has a form that to me seems unfortunate. It affords a place for recording 
a bad year's work forever. This seems to me " unfair." Sometimes, there is a physical 
cause in the teacher for a bad year and sometimes the environing conditions conspire against 
him. Such a year should be forgotten. 



46 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

substantial testimony such as that of university professors 
or of a special examining board. 

5. It should be considered in the light of the earlier 
record of the teacher. Incidentally, let it be said that the 
increase should be granted the more freely the older the 
teacher is ; and if possible, it should be granted at the end 
of the first year. 

6. The critical periods appear to be at the end of the 
second and of the fifth years of experience. No first city 
license should be valid for over two years, when the teacher 
who is certified as successful by the school principal, by 
the supervisors, and by the division superintendent, or, in 
doubtful cases, by the best of these reporting officers, should 
be eligible to a second examination to be given by the city 
board of examiners in the presence of one or more of the 
superintendents. From this advanced examination, none 
should be exempt. At the end of the fifth year, teachers 
not consistently successful should be discharge^ or required 
to take a third examination as the basis of the final 
decision. But the teachers who at the end of their third 
year have been steadily successful should have their cer- 
tificates made permanent upon the recommendation of the 
board of supervision to the city board of examiners. 

7. The first, and in most cases the only, promotional ex- 
amination should be upon such professional subjects as 
applied psychology, comparative education, special meth- 
ods, school management, and pedagogical theory, and upon 
such academic subjects as English and American litera- 
ture, modern history, biology, and art. 

8. Teachers twice transferred for cause should be 
dropped, subject to reappointment upon proof of at least 
one year of successful advanced study in residence. 

It is true that by analogy with law, medicine, and 



THE CITY SCHOOL SYSTEM 47 

theology there should be only one certificate for education ; 
but practically there are at present two radical differences. 
In the first place, lawyers, physicians, and ministers are 
constantly subject to criticism by adults, to whom or in 
whose presence their services are rendered. If they im- 
prove in the quality of their work, or the contrary, this 
is known at once to those who control their compensation. 
But teachers render their services in the presence of chil- 
dren and youth who (despite the opinion of some parents) 
are not competent critics and who obviously do not control 
their compensation. In the second place, the body of pro- 
fessional literature to be mastered by teachers before they 
begin to teach is trivial in quality and in quantity compared 
with that which must be mastered by any candidate in law, 
in theology, or in medicine.^ It is true that we now have 
several fairly voluminous treatises ; but their mastery is not 
yet required even for the highest certificate of the most diffi- 
cult examining board in the nation. Our text writers do not 
yet dare to write books at five dollars a volume. To put 
the matter otherwise, we are not yet a learned profession, 
but some acquire technical learning and become profes- 
sionalized by work in what may perhaps be properly 
styled a " skilled occupation." 

Ultimately, we may hope for a dignified professional 
library and then for admission to the profession compar- 
able with ordination to the ministry and admission to the 
bar. 

We speak of lawyers as " disciples of Blackstone," which implies a 
service by Blackstone to the legal profession not yet paralleled by that 
of any exponent of education. He analyzed all the elements of law and 
jurisprudence. No one has yet done this for education. It is possible 

^ Mulcaster was the first schoolmaster seriously to propose teaching as one of the learned 
professions. He announced this as a major " position." Vide his Positions (1581 a.d.)- 



48 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

to show in education a few special works fairly comparable with the 
many special law treatises of high authority. The same comparison 
holds for medicine and for theology. 

Goethe in the Wanderjahre of Wilhehn Meister presented as the 
core of the principles of education practised in the " Pedagogic Pro- 
vince" gradual conformity to more and more law. Not only is there a 
time in education when things are to be learned or done, but there is 
also a duration in which reflection without information or production 
proceeds. This dialectic of progress, from fact to principle, from princi- 
ple to fact ; from learning to doing, from doing to learning ; from science 
to art, from art to science ; from conduct to philosophy, from philosophy 
to conduct ; from the esoteric to the exoteric ; from outer to inner, and 
inner to outer, always via thought : this zigzag of what we now call 
" functionings," is the educational process.^ As Emerson says, in Uses 
of Great Men, man is " endogenous." His growth is, as it were, cell 
by cell. Education is no more straightening or " instructing " natural 
" bents " than it is overlaying ignorance with knowledge as a veneer. 
Education encourages what is good by nourishing it with facts or by 
exercising it in actions ; and it inhibits, arrests, encysts or atrophies 
what is bad. It is a philosophy, rooted in biology, physiology, psy- 
chology, and metaphysics ; and branching out into the " world " in 
sociology, economics, history, literature. To require the uneducated to 
educate others is as unkind to them as it is criminal to society. Froebel 
presented this clearly in the first paragraphs of his Education of Man. 

This matter of professional preparation and devotion is 
vital to the complete success of the coming educational 
renaissance. 

1 Bagley displays this in his Educative Process. There is a test of considerable value 
to such as object to anything that appears mystical and therefore anapodeictic. 

The trained child obeys the direct orders of persons; 

The instructed youth obeys certain, uniform, universal rules; and 

The educated man obeys principles resolved by reason. 
One may be confident that instruction is eventuating in education when it appears am- 
phibolic in the direction of the desired anagnorisis of free (reasoning and self-determined) 
character. And this, as Matthew Arnold showed in Culture atid Anarchy, is fairly gauged 
by conduct. Jesus said, " By their fruits, ye shall know them." Matthew, Gospel, vii. 20. 
Cf. " First, the blade, then the ear, last the full corn in the ear." 



CHAPTER III 
THE BUSINESS OFFICERS OF THE CITY SYSTEM 

Wherever and whenever in a State fundamental legisla- 
tion can be secured, there at the present time it is usually- 
best to create a small elective board of education with 
large general powers that it should be required to exert 
through three coordinate officers, — a superintendent, an 
architect, and a business manager, — with the assistance of 
two other officers, an attorney and a secretary. 

It may appear that a large board, divided into many committees, 
each doing much executive work full of details, has greater authority 
over the schools than a small board, doing no executive work at all ; 
but a close examination of the history of school boards in Boston, Cleve- 
land, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, where there has been true progress, 
and a cursory examination of the record of such communities as, for ex- 
ample, the District of Columbia, where the board has been enlarged, 
quickly dispel the illusion. 

At the present time, a fair statement of the relative 
values ^ of these several positions would qualify them 
financially in cities (say) of 100,000 population as follows, 
viz. : — 

All their time — 
Superintendent, 6:xr 
Architect, 6x 

Business manager (director), 4X 
Secretary, 2^ 
Part time — 
Attorney, ^x 

1 Obviously, these are meant only on the present supply and demand market. For a city 
of a million or more, — superintendent, 20 jr, architect, 16 x, business manager, 10 jr, secretary, 

49 



50 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The work of the attorney should be to prepare all bonds, 
deeds, leases, contracts, and bills for new legislation; to 
criticise rules and regulations ; to take all the court cases 
of the board and of its officers ; and otherwise to assist 
and advise the board and its officers. 

The attorney should be a regularly appointed and sala- 
ried officer with a fixed term of not less than that of an in- 
dividual board member (say four years). He should have 
no fear of displacement, no motive to please the board. 
His salary should be large enough to secure an experi- 
enced, skilful, and highly regarded member of the local 
bar.i 

The attendance of this attorney should not be required 
at regular board meetings ; nor should his services be at 
the call of individual members or officers, but only upon the 
resolution of the board. 

The business of the secretary of the board is to record 
the proceedings and to conduct all its correspondence. 
The secretary is not a clerk for individual members, nor 
should his stenographers be at their beck and call. In 
his office, he should enforce rigidly these principles, 
viz. : — 

1. To obey only the properly passed and recorded reso- 
lutions of the board. 

2. Not to permit any board member to issue any orders 
to, or without his full knowledge and consent to consult, 
any of his subordinates.^ Especially let him avoid re- 
sponding to the " leading board member," who may yet 

6 jr, attorney, i6 jr. In absolute value, there can be almost no comparison between the work 
of the superintendent of schools in the very large city and that in the small city; but it is 
much easier to estimate the work of the other officers relatively. 

* A certain small city which did not believe in employing an attorney on salary, spent in 
fees in one year of special litigation and legislative lobbying $23,000, an amount sufficient, if 
paid in annual salary, to have secured the services of the same attorney for ten years. 

2 Vide Our Schools, page 11, 



THE BUSINESS OFFICERS OF THE CITY SYSTEM 51 

prove to be a meddlesome, intriguing busybody, getting 
material for later treachery or at least confusion. 

3. To put as much as possible of the doings and even 
opinions of the board in writing. It pays not only to re- 
cord the resolutions but also to journaHze the entire pro- 
ceedings. 

4. To keep the files as sacrosanct archives. Not a 
paper should ever be allowed out of his possession or that 
of the attorney of the board.^ 

The secretary of the board of education in a city of con- 
siderable size should never be also business agent or man- 
ager, nor should he employ or be' employed by such a 
business officer. The kind of a man who makes a good 
recording officer seldom, perhaps never, makes a good 
business agent. 

This latter officer, who buys for the schools, should be 
an enterprising business man, familiar with every kind of 
value, — real estate, bricks, books, paper, labor. He should 
advertise for bids for all kinds of materials and supplies 
needed ; should foresee needs ; keep the board from mak- 
ing financial mistakes ; and, in a sense, do all the business 
for the board. 

Like the secretary, the business agent must regard only 
the resolutions of the board. 

The duties of the superintendent need not be suggested 
here ^ further than to serve as a standard for those of the 
school architect. In an age when we are trying to bring 
our schoolhouses up to the standard of our banks, 
churches, and theatres in appearance and in convenience, 
and to the standard of our hotels and hospitals in 

^ A certain city has a form permitting the withdrawal of a document and a substitution 
therefor. But even with a signed voucher, this is ■dangerous. From personal experience, I 
adhere to the proposition: No withdrawal of documents upon any reason whatsoever. 

2 Vz'de Chapter V, Our Schools. 



52 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

sanitation, the work of the school architect is only less 
important and scarcely less important than that of the 
superintendent.^ In one respect, it is more important. 
A poorly designed school building will last forty years ; 
an unskilful superintendent is not likely to last forty 
months in the kind of a community that has enough cul- 
ture and conscience to employ a school architect. 

The prevaihng practice of giving out the planning of 
schoolhouses to the competition of architects with the 
agreement of the board to select the best or one of the 
better plans, is indeed to be preferred to the practice of 
ordering a building direct from a contractor or to putting 
it up by day labor according to a design made by the 
board itself ; but it is by no means so good as that of em- 
ploying one man year in and year out to make plans and 
to learn by experience and by inquiry how to better them 
in every new schoolhouse.^ 

An important question not yet uniformly determined in 
school practice is whether the school architect or the 
business manager shall employ the engineers and janitors. 
It is agreed quite generally that these persons shall be 

1 In a certain community, there were erected in 1907 side by side a bank and a school- 
house both of ordinary brick with sandstone trimming. The contrast is significant: the bank 
employed an architect, the board did not. 

2 The absurdity of selecting plans for buildings by the competition of architects reached 
its climax some years ago in the District of Columbia, where the District Commissioners, not 
the so-called " board of education," had the control of school buildings. There, at the 
time, thirteen new buildings of eight rooms each were to be built within a year. A few 
architects, more than this number, entered the competition, with the understanding that the 
winner was to erect all thirteen buildings; but to avoid hard feeling, the Commissioners de- 
cided to choose thirteen of the plans and to give one building to each of the designers. The 
result may be seen by all visitors to the Capital. 

The plan of having a first-rate architect serve as referee in a competition is seldom 
honestly carried out by the board. In two instances, in two large cities, where the referee 
awarded the prize to out-of-town architects, the boards rejected the award, whereupon the 
first-class newspapers attacked the board so violently that public opinion forced the abandon- 
ment of the projects. In neither city has the proposed high school as yet, after several years, 
proceeded beyond the purchase of lots. Vide p. 65, infra. 



THE BUSINESS OFFICERS OF THE CITY SYSTEM 53 

selected, promoted, and discharged under distinctly civil 
service reform rules. They should enter competitive ex- 
aminations as rigid as those for the teachers, and they 
should be eligible to pensions when invalided by disease 
or by superannuation. 

Because the schoolhouse architect has control of new- 
buildings, of additions, of repairs, of grounds, and of 
machinery, it seems to be the better opinion that he, rather 
than the business manager, should have control of these 
caretakers of the schools.^ 

Every large city needs also a schoolhouse heating and 
ventilating engineer, who should be selected by the archi- 
tect. Their relation thereafter should be that of colleagues 
and joint advisers to the board. 

What deputies, assistants, clerks, and stenographers 
these various officers may require will, of course, depend 
upon local conditions ; but invariably they should all be 
appointed by examining boards, one of whose members 
should be their manager. Thereafter, he alone should direct 
and control their promotions, demotions, and discharges. 
When a board of education comes to disapprove of an 
under officer whom his chief regards with favor, the only 
proper remedy is the removal of the chief at the end of 
his term, or, when the term is indefinite, at the end of the 
fiscal year. 

Of the engineer and janitor service in our city public 
schools, it is a regrettable fact that the first is good only 
when the laws require the exclusive employment of licensed 
engineers, and that the second is seldom good. The causes 
are two : where politics do not influence the appointments 
of engineers and janitors, a hard business notion of 

1 Under him should be the superintendent of janitors. In very large cities, he will need 
also a chief of engineers. 



54 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

getting the cheapest available service is apt to control; 
and where politics do enter into the matter, there the 
appointees are usually incompetent. 

We are often told that here, there, ahnost everywhere, the janitor 
gets more than the teacher. Seldom does the janitor get, over and 
above the cost of his " help," a salary as large as that of an experienced 
class teacher. Almost never is he paid net as much as the building 
principal. Not only is it true that the laboring janitor is worthy of his 
hire, as is every other laboring man, but two or three other things are 
also true : he is the associate necessarily of ladies and gentlemen ; he 
practically controls from day to day the health conditions of, it may be, 
hundreds and even thousands of children, and he is a man among boys, 
and more or less their model or warning. In large buildings, he is also 
the director of labor and the custodian in effect of many thousands of 
dollars' worth of property. He should be a married man of family. In 
short, we are asking much of him. 

The question is often raised whether in large buildings 
the janitor shall be given a contract to take care of it, or 
he and all his assistants shall be carried separately upon 
the public pay-rolls. It is an objection to the first plan 
that whenever a janitor is transferred or promoted or dies 
or is dismissed and a new janitor comes in, there is a ten- 
dency to change all the help. This is usually a disadvan- 
tage not only to the cleanliness of the building, but also to 
the relations between the faculty and the janitor service. 
It is supposed by some to be an objection that it gives the 
board of education and the faculty no direct control over 
the subordinates of the janitor. It is a third objection that 
he will try to get " cheap help " so as to make as large an 
income for himself as he can. To the other plan, how- 
ever, the objections are still weightier ; and it is, therefore, 
not so common in practice. The janitor's assistants are 
not the personal servants of even the principal, cer- 
tainly not of the teachers ; nor can his helpers serve two 



THE BUSINESS OFFICERS OF THE CITY SYSTEM 55 

masters, — himself and the principal. Moreover, except 
such of his higher assistants as may, like himself, be re- 
quired to pass civil service examinations, his helpers should 
tfe selected by himself, not by board members or principal 
or teachers ; he is the best judge of what he needs. 

It is possible to utilize some of the good features of both 
plans, as follows, viz. : — 

1. Select the janitor and his more important assistants 
(one or two in large buildings) by civil service tests. 

2. Allow him to secure all other help. 

3. Specify exactly how much per month or per diem he 
shall pay to each of his help. 

4. Specify also the total amount that he is to pay out 
per month for help.-^ 

5. Give him a total sum large enough to recoup the 
foregoing items and to give him a respectable livelihood. 

There is a salary or expense difficulty in connection with 
engineer and janitor service in our public schools that is 
worth working out statistically in every system : equitable 
payment as between schools and equitable payment for 
longevity or seniority in service. The first is sometimes 
attempted ; the second almost never. 

I suggest the following items, viz. : — 



Schedule A 

1. Per square foot of classroom per month 

2. Per square foot of hallways per month . 

3. Per square foot of assembly hall per month 

4. Per square foot of sidewalk per month • 

5. Per square foot of school yard per month 

6. Per window per month .... 

7. Special allowances. 



2 X cents. 

3 X cents. 
I X cents. 
I X cents. 
I X cents. 

20 X cents. 



* In some cities, the total is only credited to the janitor. Upon his voucher, or that of the 
principal, the "cleaners" are paid in public funds. After deduction of these charges, the 
janitor is paid the bookkeeping balance. 



56 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

For longevity pay, the following may serve, viz. : — 

Schedule B 

1 . First year 'j x 

2. Second year %x 

3. Third year 9T 

4. Fourth to tenth year \ox 

5. Tenth to twentieth year \\ x 

6. Thereafter 1 2 r 

Each school property should be computed under 
Schedule A on the minimum basis. As a matter of con- 
venience to bookkeepers, odd results should be averaged, 
but not too much so. 

The schedules for assistants and helpers should also be 
prescribed by the officer or board of control as well as the 
number of such persons to be employed in each school ; 
and should recognize successful experience. 

Modern school buildings in the North are usually heated 
by steam or hot-water boilers. In such buildings, there 
should always be licensed engineers, with as many firemen 
and other assistants as the plant requires. Contrary to 
the experience with janitor service, it has usually been 
found best to put each of the engineers and assistants 
separately upon the public pay-roll. The nature of the 
work seems to require the grade of men who appreciate 
such a relation to the pubhc as warrants individual rec- 
ognition. 

Shall the janitor employ or appoint or nominate or con- 
trol in any way the engineer .'' By no means. Nor is the 
janitor service as well performed if in any way subordinate 
to the engineer service. In large cities, there should be a 
supervisor of janitors and a supervisor of engineers, coor- 
dinate with one another under the school architect, the 
building commission, or the business manager. 



THE BUSINESS OFFICERS OF THE CITY SYSTEM 57 

Both engineer and janitor forces should be beneficiaries 
of pension systems quite as much so as city policemen, 
firemen, and teachers. Such pensions are as judicious 
from the point of view of public economy and efficiency as 
they are proper from the point of view of public justice. 

Other subordinates that may be found useful in large 
cities and not suggested by the foregoing treatment are 
the following, viz. : — 

Supervisor of repairing. 
Inspector of plumbing. 

Most large cities find it economical as well as convenient 
to maintain repair shops, whose character and organization 
depend upon local conditions and needs. Old cities with 
many old buildings are in a different situation from new 
cities whose school buildings are mostly modern. Some 
cities began with frame schoolhouses, which are now being 
rapidly replaced by fireproof structures. 

Superintendents sometimes discover that the engineers 
or janitors or both are required to do trivial or unreason- 
able things by principals and teachers. Sometimes this 
cannot be corrected through orders to teachers and con- 
ferences with the heads of the engineer and janitor ser- 
vices. In such conditions, it may be justifiable for the 
superintendent to call all these workers together and in 
the presence of their chiefs go over all the complaints, lay- 
ing down the principles involved.^ 

^ Among causes of complaint are requirements to sharpen lead-pencils, to wash all black- 
boards every evening, to run personal errands, and similar duties that should be covered in 
the rules and regulations. Janitors usually, and engineers sometimes, seem to think that indi- 
vidually and collectively the teachers have great "influence" with the board. It is the 
respect and the fear of ignorance and good-will. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE CITY SCHOOL 

In the large city, the schools vary in size from one to one 
hundred or even more classes. Conditions, therefore, are 
extreme ; and rules that apply in one case fail in another. 
Some schools may be for pupils of a particular race or 
nationality, by accident or by design. The buildings may 
be new or old, good or bad, with or without annexes, with 
rooms large or small, with or without assembly halls, etc. 
At least a third of the city schoolhouses of America should 
be condemned and destroyed, and a third more should be 
thoroughly overhauled at an expense of half their original 
cost of construction.^ Humanity is dull to its own inter- 
ests here. We have now some 85,000,000 people and 
;^ 1 15,000,000,000 of wealth ; but the entire present value of 
all our school buildings and grounds is not ^1,660,000,000 
(which would be ^100 per pupil), or even half that sum.^ 
As the children of school age are one-fourth of the popu- 
lation and the whole of our future, — all that humanity 
really works for,^ — is it too much to suggest that one- 
fortieth of our wealth, or $3,000,000,000, would be scarcely 
too much to invest in school buildings and grounds for 

1 We are doing this for our business enterprises. Why not for our more important educa- 
tional concerns ? 

2 The estimated value in 1906 was $783,000,000. [ Vide Report U.S. Bureau of Education, 
Vol. I, 1906.] The value upon competent appraisal would probably not be $500,000,000. I 
find that almost all cities, towns, and villages carry their buildings on their books at first 
cost, making no allowances for depreciation, such as are invariably made by the account- 
ants of business enterprises, yet often adding all repairs. 

^ " And what would it avail if we possessed and performed all else, and became perfect 
saints, if we neglect that for which we chiefly live, namely, to care for the young." — Luther, 
Letter to Mayors and Aldermen. 

58 



THE CITY SCHOOL 59 

them ? In cities and towns, we need ;^200 per capita 
to provide right accommodations. In them, we have 
5,500,000 children at school and should have 8,000,000. 

There is no typical schoolhouse ; and we have not yet 
agreed as to what such a schoolhouse would be. But cer- 
tain considerations appear somewhat clear. We need both 
schoolrooms — that is, rooms to which all the pupils resort 
upon occasion — and classrooms for special grades or 
groups of the pupils. We need grounds about the build- 
ing, and in the city a roof-garden. And we must not go 
over three stories unless there is an elevator with a proper 
attendant.^ We must have the best-known sanitation, 
ventilation, heating, hghting, and access to stairways. In 
exterior and in interior, the building should be a delight, 
a genuine lesson in art. It should have rooms not easily 
overcrowded, yet not too large for convenient instruction 
by one teacher.^ It should have the best-known furniture 
for school uses. Of course, it should have slate black- 
boards, plenty of pictures, pianos, statuary, wall friezes, and 
sound deadening composition floors in hallways.^ But 
these requirements are matters of commonplace knowl- 
edge : the difficulty is to secure them from the managers of 
the public funds. 

It is not, however, a matter of common knowledge that 
the schoolhouse should have half as many schoolrooms as 
it has classrooms ; or how these should be arranged and 
equipped. The chief business and delight of city finan- 
ciers seem to be to strip the building of its best features, 
of the assembly hall, which is the centre of true school 
life, of the library, of the gymnasium, of the manual 

1 Even then we are in danger from panic upon the stairways and at the elevator shaft. 

2 The room over 24' x 32' or 25' x 30' is an open invitation to put in 56 pupils in 7 rows 
of 8 desks each, or 64, or even more. 

^ As in the Brockton, Mass., high school, the best flooring known. The Boston curved 
corner is also noteworthy. 



6o OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

training rooms, and of the science laboratory. Unfortu- 
nately, the superintendent and the school principal, who should 
be the attorneys for their voiceless child-clients, are too often 
in fear of their own liveliJioods to defend a true educational 
policy. ^ Architects seldom know anything of the real 
_ needs of the school to be housed in the building or of the 
latest advances in schoolhouse construction. The three 
requirements of the city financial authorities in school 
matters are: i. House as many children as possible. 
2. Do it as cheaply as possible. 3. Make a decent ap- 
pearance with the buildings. Among the remedies are : 
I. To get the absolute control of the funds vested in the 
board of education. 2. To fasten all good teachers and 
officers in their places firmly. 3. To keep out and to get 
out all incompetents. Then the educators will persuade and 
help the board members to express in the school buildings 
that good-will for the youth of the land which the Ameri- 
can public actually does feel but which politicians defy. 

A good city schoolhouse has an assembly hall that will 
seat a thousand persons. This seems arbitrary ; but chil- 
dren and youth cannot recite loud enough to be heard in 
larger rooms. A school with but three hundred pupils in 
a building with eight class rooms and four schoolrooms 
will easily draw upon occasion five hundred and more par- 
ents and neighbors together.^ This hall is to be used also 
as a school lecture extension and general community cetttre. 
The assembly halls of the larger high schools may accom- 
modate on the floor and in the galleries fifteen hundred 
persons, but to go beyond this capacity is unwise. 

Where parents are poor or many pupils come from 
remote homes, the school building should have a large 

1 Vide Appendix A, i, infra. 

' A distinction is attempted here. I use schoolroom to include recitation rooms and 
laboratories in contradistinction from class rooms. 



THE CITY SCHOOL 



6i 



24 



Desk of teacher 



Windows 
permissible 



t 



room properly equipped for lunch purposes : in some 
instances, even for breakfasts. Whether these meals 
should be furnished "at cost" or be donated should de- 
pend not upon theory but upon facts. ^ 

There are many pitfalls in schoolhouse construction ; a 
few may be suggested. 

By unilateral lighting, which is absolutely necessary, is 
meant Ughting within the quadrant centred upon the 
centre of the front row of pupils' 
desks. This eliminates most of 
the cross hghts. Usually such 
lighting is upon the left side of 
the pupils ; but it may as well 
be to the left and rear, provided 
that the quadrant principle is rig- 
idly observed. The total window- 
area should be 20 per cent of the 
floor area, and well blocked close 
to the ceiling and within the 
quadrant. The window-shades 
should be translucent and not 
opaque. This is especially nec- 
essary for sunny windows. 

There must be no windows for the children to face in 
the assembly hall or in the rooms seated with desks. 

Stairways should be not under four feet wide or over 
five and a half ; that is, there must be passageway, but not 
enough space for three files at one time, lest the centre file, 
unsupported by a wall or by a rail, be precipitated down- 
stairs. The double reverse stairway is a great advance.^ 

1 The cost plan has been solved in the St. Louis high schools and in the Rhode Island 
State Normal School, Providence. 

2 This is one of the many fine features of recent schoolhouse construction in New York 
under Mr. C. B. F. Snyder, architect for the board of education. 



The permissible windows may be 
only (upper) half length. 



62 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The cellar must be high and dry, but not so well lighted 
as ever to be convertible into class rooms, — an iniquity of 
frequent commission by ignorant indifference or by posi- 
tive wickedness. A damp gymnasium in a cellar may be 
worse than none at all. 

The double desk is an offence both against the person- 
ality of the school boy or girl and against sound hygiene. 
Building now rooms so small as to force the use of double 
desks is ignorance that should be legally criminal. 

The best place for the toilet rooms of any building is, of 
course, outside of the building, where the special structure 
should be perfectly ventilated and sufficiently lighted and 
heated.^ Brick walls and entrances to the passageways 
remote from one another must separate the sexes, whether 
these rooms be inside or outside of the building. The 
amount of accommodation provided for girls and for the 
smaller boys is seldom one-third of the real need. Where 
these conveniences are inside of the school building, they 
should be concentrated and not scattered about. In a 
small building, the basement alone is the proper place. 
This should be at least ten feet in clear height, with forced 
ventilation. The plumbing must not be merely accessible ; 
as far as possible it must be exposed in plain sight. 

The minimum provision of floor space per desk should 
be twenty square feet. The maximum number of seats 
in a room should be forty-eight ; while forty-two or less 
should be the average. Only one set of pupils should use 
the building daily .^ 

1 Chicago has a tower plan that seems to solve this problem, Mr. D. H. Perkins, architect. 
By this plan, there are two toilet rooms upon each floor at opposite ends of the building. 
The ventilation is perfect. 

2 There is in a certain city a schoolhouse that averages 120 pupils per teacher per day, 60 
pupils four hours in the morning and as many in the afternoon. It is a crime against human 
nature, both that of the teacher who gives eight hours of instruction daily, and that of the 120 
pupils who attend. 



THE CITY SCHOOL 6$ 

The ventilation ducts should be so arranged as to create 
no drafts upon either teacher or children. They must 
operate successfully in all kinds of weather, which is espe- 
cially difficult to secure in the mild damp days of fall or 
of winter or of spring.^ Then the children most need the 
fresh air that even the windows will not supply. That is ' 
an unsuccessful system of ventilation which requires to 
be supplemented by the windows and the doors.^ % 

Every class room, schoolroom, cloak room, wardrobe, 
library, and toilet should have at least two doors, for free 
passage of entrance or exit either way.^ 

Every cloak room must have at least one large window, 
and inlet and outlet ventilation flues with forced draft. 

The library should be large enough to accommodate 
at least an entire class at one time, with provision for 
at least ten thousand books; but in addition, every room 
should have a special collection of books for individual 
reading. 

Each class room and room for special uses should have a 
closet, not less than 5' x 8', with drawers and shelves. 

There should be a good stock-room. The janitor requires 
a proper room for his tools, for his supplies, and for him- 
self ; but he should not live in the building. 

There should be a room for the women teachers and 
another for the men, with proper conveniences. 

All school buildings should be strictly fireproof. 

In the rooms for small children, blackboards should begin 

1 St. Louis has solved admirably the problem of washing air clean and of giving it proper 
humidity, about 55° of saturation. Heated air otherwise superinduces to colds and 
pneumonia. 

2 Forced ventilation hy plenum (supply) and vacuum (exhaust) fans is now standardized 
in all modern schoolhouse construction. 

2 Per contra, in order that the teacher may have perfect control against panic, Boston 
gives but one door to the class room, while the two doors of the wardrobe open into the 
class room. 



64 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

at 26" from the floor and should be graded up to 34" 
in high schools. Behind the teacher's desk, the board 
may extend to 9'; but on other walls not over f . It is a 
waste of money to put blackboards in kindergartens. 

Every primary school should have a double kindergarten, 
for two grades of children, the 4- to 5-year old and the 5- 
to 6-year old. A typical school for all elementary grades 
will have an enrolment as follows, viz. : — 

Beginning kindergarten, 4 to 5 yr 32 pupils 

Advanced kindergarten, 5 to 6 yr., 75 pupils 

Grade II, A and B, 6 to 7^ yr 100 pupils 

Grade III, A and B, 7 to 9 yr 120 pupils 

Grade IV, A and B, 8 to 10 yr 115 pupils 

Grade V, A and B, g to 12 yr 100 pupils 

Grade VI, A and B, 10 to 13 yr. 85 pupils 

Grade VII, A and B, II to 14 yr 75 pupils 

Grade VIII, A and B, 11^ to 15 yr 60 pupils 

Grade IX, A and B, 12 to 162 yr 50 pupils 

812 pupils 

The double kindergarten, connected by sUding or fold- 
ing doors, is desirable for the general exercises. It should 
be so shut off by halls and cloak rooms and by deadened 
floors that its music and games will not disturb other 
classes. 

Schoolhouses, if possible, should be protected against 
external nuisances from streets paved with stones, from 
railroad traffic, from factory chimneys with their soft 
smoke, and from high buildings that shut out the hght. 
In the eyes of the Maker of the earth, it cannot be a waste 
of ground to put a school in a park even on a city street. 
Neither does this deprive the city of so much taxable prop- 
erty, for the business people simply build elsewhere. 
Would God that some genuine political economists might 
investigate education and tell the people all the truth about 



THE CITY SCHOOL 65 

schools and their relation to wealth ! An acre of land 
for the first sixteen rooms full of school children is the 
minimum; then add a half acre for every sixteen rooms 
more. The other idea, of transporting all the children to- 
gether outside of the congested sections, cannot win, 
though it is valuable as the solution of a special problem.^ 
The parents want their boys and girls near home. 

In a congested part of a city, the plan of a " large plot " 
is a mistake.^ It invites future building, which defeats 
the end proposed. The city needs not a plot but a park. 

The open competition for plans is a pitfall, dangerous 
even when sealed, unsigned plans, based upon the specifi- 
cations of an expert, are submitted to his choice. An hon- 
est, competent choice by a true architect, possessing the 
familiarity of an expert with the principles and the condi- 
tions involved, seldom appeals to the artistic or other 
sense of the committee of laymen who must ratify the 
choice. The large city should employ a school architect 
on an adequate salary for expert service.^ 

The city schoolhouse with twenty class rooms and with 
half a dozen other rooms used for school purposes accom- 
modates nine hundred children in actual attendance, and 
requires as its teaching complement 

I principal 2 manual training teachers 

20 class room teachers i physical culture teacher 

I music teacher i clerk 

I art teacher i apprentice teacher 

1 Search, An Ideal School. 

2 In a certain city are four separate schoolhouses on a plot originally meant for one. No 
yard remains. For city plots, the buildings should be upon LI, H, or n (interior court) 
plans. These insure some outside, ground-level play-spaces. Roof gardens should be added. 

3 The Boston plan of a schoolhouse commission will work admirably as long as there is a 
competent architect upon the commission. In this instance, the city has Mr. R. Clipston 
Sturgis. Such a commission is prepared to make a competent choice of plans. Vide p. 97, 
infra. 



66 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

In addition, there should be one medical inspector for every 
three or four schools of this size and one school nurse. 

A school with forty classrooms requires one department 
head ; that with sixty, two such heads. The school of over 
thirty classes requires also a school librarian. There is no 
economy in the larger schoolhouses save in the cost of 
land when they have over three stories and have an elevator 
service. For equal quality of instruction, the running ex- 
penses per capita of the pupils are least in schools of from 
sixteen to twenty-four rooms. Both smaller schools and 
larger schools are more costly. 

Among the duties of the principal of such a school are 
the following, viz. : — 

1. To assign the old teachers to their grades, classes, 
and, in certain instances, special subjects ; to confer with 
higher school authorities, and to assist them in assign- 
ing new teachers ; to recommend transfers and discharges 
of teachers ; to recommend salary promotions ; and, monthly 
or otherwise, to report their pay-rolls. 

2. To promote, to advance, and to demote at fixed inter- 
vals the pupils ; to enter new pupils ; to keep records of 
their proficiency, punctuality, regularity, conduct, health, 
special deficiencies or defects, gradation and promotion ; to 
organize them in classes ; and to direct and to control their 
recesses, intermission periods, playground games, athletics, 
societies, and meetings of any and every kind that centre 
upon the school. 

3. To assist parents' organizations, evening schools, and 
lectures, medical inspection, alumni associations ; in short, 
any and all activities in the creation of the school as a 
social centre, in the making of a true school community, 
and in school extension generally. 

4. To prepare grade and subject programmes and to assist 



THE CITY SCHOOL 67 

teachers in preparing daily programmes of class recitation, 
exercises, and study ; to advise teachers regarding methods 
and materials and devices ; to hold faculty meetings at 
least fortnightly ; to visit all schoolrooms in person daily 
and to know the work of every teacher and of every child ^ 
as they progress through the term. 

5. To obey, to counsel, to assist, and in every way pos- 
sible to promote the efforts of all higher professional 
authorities ; to hold all subordinates to loyal and active 
support ; to keep open the gateways of information and to 
be ready and eager to improve in knowledge, in skill, and 
in courage ; and to belong to the profession of education. 

6. To know all that is to be known of school architec- 
ture; to know one's own building; to control the janitor 
and engineer service; to tolerate no inefficiency that is 
remediable by any process within reason ; to think of prog- 
ress in quality and in quantity of building and of grounds, 
and to work for progress with the board of education, with 
the city council (where that body still has, as it should not 
have, any power over school funds), with the State board 
of education, and with the State legislature. 

6. And never to put livelihood before or above genuine 
educational service ; nor pride of personal opinion above 
one's sense of what is the next thing that it is wise and 
right to do. 

The principal requires a suitable office, with a large 
desk, with shelf room for a thousand books upon pedagogy, 
philosophy, psychology, literature, economics, history, and 
sociology, with abundant window light coming upon the 
left side of his desk, with a typewriter and a duplicating 

1 This applies in the case of the school with forty or more classes to department heads, for 
the obligation to know all his pupils applies only to those in the twenty classes solely in the 
charge of the principal. 



68 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

machine, with available artificial light for evening work,^ 
with simple medical and surgical supplies to supplement 
the work of the school nurse or to supply the absence of 
such a person, and with a door with a full-size plain glass 
panel opening upon the hallway. 

He is the first educational officer to come to the school 
in the morning, and is not the first to leave at the noon 
intermission or when school closes in the afternoon. He 
works at least as hard as the hardest-working teacher. 
He reads at least as much current periodical school litera- 
ture and journalism as the brightest of his teachers. He 
is the leader, he \s facile prmceps. Otherwise, he is out of 
place, a detriment to the school, an object of contempt not 
the less real because it is silent, a stumbling-block to edu- 
cational progress, in the school community, in the city, and 
in the nation. 

The true principal is the school. He conducts the morn- 
ing exercises, reading the Scriptures,^ leading in the Lord's 
Prayer, quoting the best poetry, directing and encouraging 
the school music, devising the rhetoricals, the innocent 
school plays and concerts, and the Saturday excursions to 
the fields or to places of historic interest, and guiding the 
children with ethical counsels while he supports the teach- 
ers with unvarying and unwavering authority. The good 
principal is the refuge of the distracted teacher; in his 
school, no teacher ever is long distracted. And he is at 
once wise, strong, and kind enough to be the best friend 
of the children, next to their own parents, and often a 

1 The best principals whom I know are not afraid of working even all night in a crisis, and 
keep their health at a point where upon occasion they can do this without injury. Strength, 
not health, wins in this world. They are not synonymous or coexistent. Health is vitality 
plus reserve. Strength is vigor, which is surplus reserve. For a little time, a sick man, 
hitherto well, may display strength both in offence and in endurance. 

2 Not the parts that lead to theological controversy. As for the Prayer, who yet has 
searched out all of its meaning or felt all of its grace and beauty ? 



THE CITY SCHOOL 69 

better and more helpful friend than their own parents. 
He understands and believes that education is the fonn 
that religion takes i7t this age ; and he knows that one 
who sees a duty and does not perform it, to that extent 
blocks some purpose of God. 

How much is such a principal worth to a community, to 
his fellow-teachers also .>' Does the theory of promotion in 
salary apply also to him or to her? I submit the following 
schedule : — 

For the Principal 

In a school of 20 teachers : — 

ist year 2d 3d 4th 5th 6th 

Secondary . 25 ;ir i(yx i"] x iZx 29 ;f 30 :«• 

Intermediate. 10 x 2\x 7.2 x 23 :r 2\x 25 jt 

Elementary . 15 r \6x ly x iSx 

Primary. . I2;ir 13 ;r I4;ir j^x 

For the first addition of 20 classes with a department supervisor or 
head in the nature of an assistant principal : — 

Secondary school • . . . . . . 10 x 

Intermediate school 7 x 

Elementary school ....... ^x 

Primary school 2X 

In determining the rank of a school, the criterion should 
be the rank af its highest grade ; that is, an intermediate 
school of forty classes of grades VH, VHI, and IX should 
rank no higher than a school with grades kindergarten to 
IX, inclusive. If there is any difference in difficulties of 
administration, of organization, and of supervision, the 
second is the harder to direct and to manage.^ 

By the foregoing schedule, the experienced principal of 
an intermediate (grammar) school of twenty classes would 

1 It is profitable to note the philology of these words : administer, to serve ; organize, 
to discover the organs and to help them function, to set in order ; supervise, to oversee ; 
direct, to set right ; and manage, to put (and keep) in hand. 



70 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

receive 25 per cent more than a successful teacher of grade 
IX, while the principal of a school of sixty-five classes 
would receive 100 per cent more. 

As the principal is the potent factor in the rating and 
promoting of teachers, so in the large city the associate 
superintendent assigned for the year to the division should 
be the potent but not the final authority in rating and pro- 
moting the principal. The license as principal should be 
valid for two years, and after one or more years of 
successful experience may be made permanent upon 
reexamination. An unsuccessful principal, before being 
discharged, should be given trial elsewhere by at least 
one transfer ; but if not successful at the close of the 
fifth year, should be reduced in rank and given a position 
as department head or as a class teacher. 

There are various schemes for organizing the city 
school of fifty or a hundred classes. Some are more ap- 
propriate to the school of no or relatively few grammar 
classes ; and others, less appropriate. The appropriateness 
of a scheme is dependent upon two points, as an ellipse 
depends upon its two foci. These two points are the maxi- 
mum grade of pupil in the school and the actual maximum 
salary of the class teacher. These two points condition 
the fitness of a scheme and are both essential. Depart- 
mental organization is entirely out of place in any school, 
large or small, in which the highest grade is not at least 
the eighth year ^ (the second year below the common high 
school), or in any school with a low maximum salary ; a 
reason may be given in each case, a reason derived from ' 

1 This is said without prejudice to the question of the length of the school course. It is 
interesting, however, to note that Germany, with its universal compulsion and with its unique 
thoroughness, cannot hold boys and girls at school and promote them much more generally 
than we do. Report, U.S. Bureau of Education, 1906, Vol. I, page 70. Vide pp. 22-3, supra, 
where the principle involved is discussed. 



THE CITY SCHOOL 71 

practical experience. The departmental teacher in all sub- 
jects is disadvantageous in classes with pupils below four- 
teen years of age and below the systematic study of United 
States history, of general geography, and of the English 
language. All lower classes are confused by too many 
teachers ; and each needs one teacher for recitation exer- 
cises. Whether intending to do so or not, the one teacher, 
of psychological inevitableness, must correlate the daily 
material of studies, exercises, and recreations. The har- 
mony of method in instruction and in discipline tends to 
harmonize the soul of the child. 

The necessity of a fairly high maximum salary in the 
case of departmental teachers consists in the fact that the 
scheme is a sifting process, and the poor teacher, being 
tested relentlessly and constantly both by pupils and by 
all adults environing him or her, cannot last. In con- 
sequence, where many teachers are of poor quality, the 
plan itself appears to be a failure, for by hypothesis the 
amount available for salaries is too low to command uni- 
formly good teachers. In departmental teaching, every 
teacher must be a good teacher. 

When a school consists of twenty or forty or sixty classes 
with twenty or forty or sixty teachers, one to each class 
for all day, its organization is a very rudimentary, proto- 
plasmic, affair. But a school with a corresponding num- 
ber of classes may well be a complex, highly developed 
organism, as shown in this scheme, viz. : — 



9 GRADES 


6s CLASSES IN ALI 


PRINCIPAL 


73 TEACHERS IN ALL 


VH-IX 


12 classes 


Intermediate department 


15 teachers 


ni-vi 


27 classes 


Elementary department 


30 teachers 


K-n 


25 classes 


Primary department 


27 teachers 




I class 


Ungraded self-help class 


I teacher 




General clerk 


Librarian General substitute 



Janitor and assistant Engineer and fireman 



72 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

In all, about eighty persons upon the public pay-roll. Ten years'" 
course, two in the kindergarten. 

Clearly, this principal has a larger educational enterprise 
upon his hands than many a superintendent in a town or 
a small city. True, he has not the task of trying to get a 
board of laymen to accept professional views of education ; 
and he has no direct contact with money matters.^ But to 
offset these anxieties, he has the vexations of comparative 
powerlessness often under close authoritative prescriptions. 
He must meet or parry the criticisms of visiting superin- 
tendents, supervisors, directors, and special teachers ; and 
he cannot reply once a year in a formal printed report of 
more or less interest to the general public.^ 

The organization of the intermediate department may 
prove the first concern of the principal, for he will prob- 
ably give to the two heads of departments assisting him 
the organization of the elementary and primary depart- 
ments respectively. The twelve intermediate classes may 
perhaps readily be assigned in three groups of four classes 
each, or of three, four, and five classes respectively. A 
four-class department division maybe as follows, viz.: — 



Grade IX, B 
Grade IX, B 
Grade IX, A 
Grade IX, A 



A-B. History, geography. 

C-D. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry. 

P-Q. Reading, spelling, grammar. 

Y-Z. Science, writing, miscellaneous. 



A school day of Grade IX, B, may have this programme, 
viz. : — 

9-9 : 15 A.M. Morning exercises, current events with A-B. 

9 : 15-10. Algebra with C-D. 

10-10 : 10. Physical exercise with W-X, the teacher for all the 

school. 

1 Unless he can direct small immediate repairs not to exceed (say) $50 per month, as, e.g., 
in New York city. 

2 In the development of all the values of a city school system, this is likely to come. 



THE CITY SCHOOL 73 

10 : 10-10 :30 A.M. Writing with Y-Z. 
10:30-10:45. Recess. 

10 : 45-1 1:15. History with A-B. 
II : 15-12. Grammar with P-Q. 

1 : 15-1 :45 P.M. Geography with A-B. 

1 : 45-3. Manual training, boys with W-Y, and girls with S-T, 

teachers for the entire school. 

Another school day for the same class may have this 
programme, viz. : — 

9-9:15 A.M. Morning exercises, music with E-F, teacher for all 

the school. 

9 : 15-10. Arithmetic with C-D. 

10-10 : 10. Physical exercise with W-X. 

10 : 10-10 : 30. SpelHng with P-Q. 

10:30-10:45. Recess. 

10 : 45-1 1:15. History with A-B. 

1 1 : 15-12. Grammar with P-Q. 

1 : 1 5-1 :45 P.M. Reading with P-Q. 

1 :45-2 : 15. Science with Y-Z. 

2 :i5-3. Drawing with G-H, teacher for all the school. 

Among the primary matters of school management that 
must be settled before these daily programmes can be en- 
tirely adjusted are the following, viz. : — 

Shall the school as a whole go to the assembly hall for 
general exercises every morning ? If not, into how many 
sections shall the school be divided .'' It is good manage- 
ment for each class to have morning exercises in its own 
room, the teacher giving the special ethical instruction. 

The question of the number of periods of recitations 
and exercises each day must be answered, as well as that 
of the hours of opening and of closing, before the pro- 
gramme can be made. 

It is necessary to have the periods of about the same 



74 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

length throughout the day, because in one class arithme- 
tic will occupy the first period, in another grammar, in a 
third history, etc. There may, however, be half-periods. 
In adjusting these matters nicely, the principal shows the 
degree of skill that he possesses. 

It is always requisite that the classroom teacher shall 
have charge of the discipline of the class, and, under the 
principal, the matter of relations with the parents. This 
teacher also oversees the home lessons of the pupils and, 
if possible, directs the study periods at school. 

When the curriculum calls for ten studies in the grade, 
it will be no more possible in the departmental programme 
to arrange for a lesson in every subject every day than it 
is in the plan of one teacher per class.^ Certain subjects, 
such as spelling and writing, may have a short lesson every 
day, and arithmetic or grammar or both may have full 
periods daily. 

Such a subject as science or nature study may have 
but one or two lessons a week in the way of recreative 
information. 

Such subjects as drawing, music, woodworking, cooking, 
sewing, and physical culture will have one teacher each for 
the entire school ; or, when confined to the highest grades, 
may have for the entire school but part of the time of the 
teacher, who may give lessons in several schools. Such 
teachers of classes must not be confused with supervisors 
of these subjects. 

Current events are proposed as a kind of present geog- 
raphy and history. A lesson the first hour on Monday or 
the last hour on Friday usually meets all requirements. 

^ In all ages, the attempt to teach at one time many things has been a symptom of educa- 
tional retrogression. Vide Motives, Ideals, and Values, Chapter XIX. Said Comenius in 
The Great Didactic, " Confusion has arisen in the schools through the endeavor to teach 
scholars many things at one time." 



THE CITY SCHOOL 75 

This plan does not contemplate too rigid an assignment 
of subjects to the teachers, for it may well be that M. N. 
teaches history and arithmetic in two classes, while O. P. 
teaches these subjects in two other classes. It may prove 
advantageous to make the department of four teachers as 
follows : — 



Grade IX, B 
Grade IX, A 
Grade VIII, B 
Grade VIII, A 



The advantage consists in the fact that the four 
teachers will have the same children for two 
years. 



The argument for the superiority of a departmental ar- 
rangement over a collocation of unconnected classes rests 
upon these propositions, viz. : — 

The pupil above twelve or fourteen years of age wearies 
of seeing the same teacher every moment at school for 
an entire term, and benefits by meeting different person- 
alities. 

The teacher also is happier in meeting a variety of 
pupils. 

In the course of a few years, the teacher who has les- 
sons to prepare in but a few subjects becomes reasonably 
proficient in these subjects and teaches with a much larger 
body of scholarship and with a much larger equipment of 
special pedagogical devices than may ever be possessed 
by one who must teach four or five times as many subjects. 

Every teacher has certain subjects in which he is more 
proficient and more interested than he is in others. When 
one must teach all subjects, one cannot avoid emphasizing 
some and neglecting others. In the departmental plan, 
each teacher instructs in the subjects of greatest interest 
to himself. 

As a matter of practical experience, it is found that while 
the class taught by one teacher may excel in the drill 



76 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 



features of the various subjects, the class taught by several 
teachers of equal competence with the one teacher always 
excels in body of knowledge and in skill in dealing with 
the material of each subject. 

The strongest reason, in my judgment, for favoring the 
departmental plan in higher grades is that in few cases are 
pupils and the teacher "good friends." In most cases, 
some pupils either do not hke or are dishked by the 
teacher. The boy who is out of favor or who keeps his 
teacher out of his favor has but little hope of education in 
the one-teacher class. Where he has three or four teachers 
daily, he is almost certain to find at least one with whom 
he may prosper intellectually and morally.^ 

There are, however, certain lower grades in which a sub- 
stantially one-teacher plan is best, the supplementary in- 
struction being given by special teachers assigned to the 
department. The plan may be as follows, viz. : — 



Grade III, 


B 1 (class) 


teacher 




Grade III, 


B 2 (class) 


teacher 




Grade III, 


A^ (class) 


teacher 


Department teachers in 


Grade III, 


A 2 (class) 


teacher 


I. Music 


Grade II, 


B 1 (class) 


teacher 


2. Drawing 


Grade II, 


B 2 (class) 


teacher 


3. Physical culture 


Grade II, 


A^ (class) 


teacher 


4. Writing 


Grade II, 


A 2 (class) 


teacher 


or as may be possible or 


Grade I, 


B 1 (class) 


teacher 


preferable financially or 


Grade I, 


B 2 (class) 


teacher 


educationally. 


Grade I, 


A^ (class) 


teacher 




Grade I, 


A 2 (class) 


teacher 





1 This seems to me the true reason for the success of the plan of Superintendent John 
Kennedy at Batavia, N.Y. This last reason is perhaps a strong enough reason for organizing 
the middle grades or even all grades with two teachers for two classes, each instructing half a 
day in a class or in alternating periods, or one teacher doing all the class-teaching, while the 
other gives all the individual help. This, however, is a plan not to be confused with com- 
plete departmental organization involving many teachers. 



THE CITY SCHOOL 77 

The teachers of the " incoming subjects " or those espe- 
cially difficult or those requiring special skill may teach in 
each class a brief period each day ; or when assigned to 
several departments, they may teach but once a week. 
They tend both to standardize the work in the different 
classes; to give the teachers of the other subjects a little 
relief from the monotonous routine of the day and week ; 
and to refresh the pupils with t^ie voices and the presence 
of various teachers. The quality of the instruction in a 
school system may be gauged by the number of such spe- 
cial teachers and by their salaries. Several of such teachers 
in each school on high salaries means a good school system ; 
none at all means a dry routine ; one or two on low salaries 
means progress; while many on low salaries means politics 
and place-hunting.^ 

It is not justifiable to dismiss the question of departmental work in 
the grades in a cavalier fashion without at least mentioning certain dis- 
advantages of this plan and certain practical reasons for not introduc- 
ing it in some communities. 

1 . Where teachers have actual or practical life tenures, and where at 
the same time the higher salaries for long experience are paid only in 
the upper grades, there of a certainty many teachers will be too weak in 
intellect, too fixed in habit, and too antagonistic to new ideas and 
methods to make the success of departmental work possible. 

2. It is desirable to teach several subjects every day and at certain 
times in the day and invariably at the same time.^ This cannot be 
arranged for all classes in the department. 

1^ In a certain city, there were, in 1907, over 300 supervisors and specialists, in the pro- 
portion of I to every 8 class teachers; and one half of these supervisors received less salary 
than those whom they supervised. 
2 Vide Our Schools, page 390. 

First on programme (to bring into " the school atmosphere") : 

Music and ethical lessons. 

Next, the hardest lesson: Mathematics. 

Then, a recreation: Physical culture. 



CHAPTER V 

EQUIPMENT 

European visitors, when taken to the " show " American 
schools, are wont to say that our buildings are fine and 
costly and our apparatus fair, but our teachers poorly paid 
(and, of course, therefore, poorly prepared). It is a super- 
ficial criticism, and on the whole, too favorable ; yet it con- 
tains an element of truth. Of these three factors in educa- 
tion, tJie teacher is of the most importance, eqtnpment next, 
building least. Of the middle term, " equipment," it may 
be said that poor teachers must have an abundance of appa- 
ratus, books, and supplies, while good teachers will demand 
it as of right ; but the saying of this does not offset the fact 
that in America it is easier to get money for things visible 
than it is to get money for that invisible thing, — teaching 
power. Our culture is relatively young : in this respect, 
age brings wisdom. 

By school apparatus, we mean everything mechanical 
that serves the purposes of teaching, — from the " splints" 
used in counting in the advanced kindergarten or " con- 
necting class " to the machines for determining the laws 
of physics in high, normal, and collegiate grades. A cata- 
logue of things desirable in a city school system makes a 
book by itself ; but some few things of first importance 
require emphasis. 

Every school, irrespective of grade, may well have a 
good stereopticon lantern and a rejlectoscope. Such a lan- 
tern may be single or double, direct or dissolving, large or 

78 



EQUIPMENT 79 

small; its light may be electric, acetylene, oxyhydrogen, 
kerosene, or ordinary gas.^ The reflectoscope is a device 
for throwing the reflection of ordinary pictures upon the 
screen. 2 In geography, history, nature, and natural 
science teaching, these lantern views are invaluable. Of 
course, the possession of a lantern or reflectoscope neces- 
sitates some means for darkening the room in which it is 
to be used. The notion that one lantern will do for a school 
system or even one for each normal and high school of a 
city was an advance upon that of the day when there 
were no lanterns at all ; but it is now well understood that 
every elementary school requires at least one lantern 
and one reflectoscope of its own for day lectures to its 
own pupils and that every high school requires several. 
Teaching by lantern views is well-established pedagogy. 
Every school benefits having a set of stereoscopes with a 
sufficient supply of views. 

Every school requires also several large globes of the 
world. The eighteen-inch globe is standard. There should 
also be an equipment of fifty or more small globes in the 
rooms in which world geography is taught. The plane 
map gives false views of spatial relations. It serves well 
enough for learned and travelled adults ; but it misleads 
the ignorant. Often, it is not understood at all. 

Slate blackboards or better should be used. Genuine 
slate (not limestone) is indeed expensive ; but it wears for- 
ever. There is at least one cement formula^ even blacker 
and cleaner-cutting than slate ; but it is equally expensive 
and perhaps more troublesome to provide. Plaster and 
wooden blackboards are expensive to maintain. Various 
papier-mache boards are better than plaster ; but not so 

^ Cost ranges up to $250. Slides average 40 cents. 

^ Cost ranges up to $100. 

2 In successful use in Cleveland, O., public schools. 



80 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

good as slate or cement. The old notions that the black- 
board should be only upon the front of the class room 
or that it must go all around the room at a uniform 
height and of a uniform width can no longer be sustained. 
Some rooms require no blackboards at all. Others re- 
quire great cabinets of blackboards, one behind another.^ 

Every school requirts fo/dhi^ leaf cabiiiets, or the equiva- 
lent, for the serial display of the work of the pupils. The 
value of such permanent exhibits of school work is entirely 
obvious : the only reason why every school does not thus 
record its own history is because we do not provide enough 
money for our public schools (or indeed for most of our 
private schools either). 

As a matter of construction, even strictly fireproof build- 
ings should have provision of hose and couplings and ade- 
quate head of water upon every floor with sound water 
pipes for immediately putting out " local fires " in closets, 
waste-baskets, or desks. Chemical fire extinguishers also 
are requisite. From basement to roof ridge, the building 
should be absolutely safe and wholly protected. Every 
door must open outward. No door of any kind is ever to 
be locked or fastened when even one child is in the building. 

Not only should all the buildings be connected by tele- 
phone with the central office of the superintendent and his 
immediate advisers,^ but all parts of every school should be 
connected by telephone service with the office of the prin- 
cipal. In those small schools in which the principal has 
also a class in charge (with or without an assistant), it is 
especially desirable that there should be easy communica- 
tion between rooms. The value of inter-room and inter- 

1 In Boston, Newton, and Cambridge, Mass., svich cabinets of five or six disappearing 
blackboards are a common equipment for the science lecture rooms. 

' In the metropolitan cities, the schools will be so connected via the offices of district and 
division superintendents. 



EQUIPMENT 8 1 

school telephone service is all out of proportion to and 
many times as great as the expense. It is indeed so great 
that I used to wonder why in parsimonious communities 
the teachers themselves did not make the installation at their 
own expense. Later, I came to see that parsimonious com- 
munities are cause and effect of parsim-onious teachers, — 
made so, be it confessed, by their own poverty. ; 

The school buildings and apparatus of a community are r 
not often below the standards of the teachers themselves. 

Every school should have in its main front yard a great 
flagpole to fly the " Stars and Stripes " of the United 
States, at a height far above the roof-tops. This pole will 
cost at the present time ^200 to 1^300.^ 

Every school should have for its assembly hall a flag of 
suitable size and a small flag for every child and youth 
to carry upon patriotic marches about the building and 
grounds and upon occasion in street processions. 

Every school needs what we now call a " manual train- 
ing" equipment. This is only a general term, meant to 
cover mechanic arts in high schools, domestic science and 
art, and plain carpentry and sewing. 

A reason why such courses are pronounced by many 
persons " fads and frills," and educationally undesirable, 
is because these persons are avaricious or miserly, and 
manual training costs money. A good " centre " for (say) 
twenty-five hundred boys and girls during a week needs 
eight to ten rooms (twenty classes of twenty-four pupils 
each per day, an hour and a half each).^ 

Such a centre is not ideal, because it presupposes 

1 To be seen to advantage in East Orange, N.J. 

2 The attractive " French manual training centre school" (for elementary pupils) in the 
District of Columbia is a good beginning in one city. A proper equipment for an elementary 
(grammar) school course will cost $4000 to $6000 " extra," that is, beyond the cost of the 
" essentials." 



82 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

drawing together for the purposes of this instruction the 
grammar-grade children from several schools, whereas it is 
ediicatio7ially desirable to have this instruction an ititegral 
part of the everyday work. The very existence of a 
separate centre seems to imply that the manual training 
courses are not " regular." Consequently, it is desirable 
to have each school building sufficiently large to accommo- 
date a sufficient number of pupils to warrant a complete 
manual training equipment. 

The furniture of a school building should be at once 
artistic and substantial. Indeed, it cannot be the first 
without also being the second. Each teacher needs a 
good desk with a flat top and drawers upon both sides.^ 

The schoolroom desk is a unique American invention. 
In its best form, it is adjustable up and down, forward and 
back. The chair is independent of the desk and is simi- 
larly adjustable up and down, forward and back. The 
best back or shoulder rest is the so-called "typewriter 
chair back," which also is adjustable up and down.^ To 
these adjustments are sometimes added adjustability of 
the lid for desks in higher grammar grades and in high 
and normal schools. It is sometimes objected to these 
adjustments that they are so complicated as to be unwork- 
able by ordinary principals, teachers, and janitors. So 
much the more is there reason for getting better princi- 
pals, teachers, and janitors. Again, it is urged that most 
children in a well-graded school are so nearly standard in 

1 Such a desk cannot be bought at wholesale for less than $23 to $25. In a certain city, 
there were approximately one thousand teachers. The average desk had cost $7. The 
board of education one day discovered the situation, only to find that to make this matter 
right for every teacher meant a total expenditure of $20,000 in one item. This city actually 
did replace all desks in the next four years. 

2 This is the so-called " Boston schoolhouse commission type." Technically, these adjust- 
ments are styled horizontal plus (+) and minus (— ) and vertical + and — . The range is 
usually four to five inches, 



EQUIPMENT 83 

size that one row of adjustable desks suffices. To this, the 
one reply is that one row of adjustable desks is better than 
none, that two are better than one, et cetera. 

All schoolrooms, even those for manual training, indeed 
also the janitor's room, requires a built-in bookcase'^ to 
accommodate (say) four hundred books. The lower part 
of the built-in recess should have drawers and a cabinet 
closet. 

In addition, each room requires three standard chairs, 
preferably of bent wood and cane. The best of these 
chairs is for the teacher, the others are for visitors. 

A big, substantial table with suitable chairs, at which six 
to ten children can work, is a desideratum for Nature study, 
geography, and busy-work. 

In high schools and in higher grammar grades, revolving 
book cases with movable reading shelves for dictionaries, 
gazetteers, encyclopaedias, and other reference books are 
requisite. 

For photographs, objets du vertu, and permissible bric-a- 
brac, the best arrangement consists of a shelf eight inches 
wide immediately above the blackboard. 

The question of flowers can be solved only with the 
assistance of the architect, who should provide a proper 
window ledge.^ What is required is adequate provision 
for drainage of water, and also provision to prevent freez- 
ing. Wooden window boxes to be set in metal pans should 
be built with the woodwork of the schoolhouse. The 
flower question, be it understood, is not settled by having 
no flowers in the schoolrooms. 

For window shades, the material and color required are 

' This is independent of the large closet, page 63, supra. 

* The detail in St. Louis is entirely satisfactory. The city also has an ingenious plan of 
casement windows opening outward upon balconies. 



84 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

such as let in and diffuse the light, but exclude the yellow 
rays of the sunshine,^ There should be two shades at each 
window : one to be depended from the top, and the other 
from the middle of the window ; or both from the middle, 
one running up and the other down. 

For south windows in regions where the sunlight is very 
strong, there is a demand for double shades. In this case, 
one shade may be opaque green and the other translucent 
ecru. 

In every city, a considerable number of the schools, say 
one-half, should have all the class rooms equipped with 
lights for evening classes. The "combination fixture " for 
gas and electric light is still in vogue; but electricity is 
rapidly becoming the standard artificial school light. The 
gas, however, is useful in the experiments in chemistry. 
As a matter of course, there should be an adequate 
lighting system in every schoolhouse for the hallways, 
basement, teachers' rooms, and assembly halls. 

The question as to whether light and power should be 
developed in each schoolhouse by a special plant or be 
purchased from private companies or be secured from a 
general municipal plant, is not purely financial. The 
small isolated plant is more Ukely to get out of order 
than the large plant with its duplicate, triple, and even 
quadruple machinery. The question of securing com- 
petent engineers and firemen for the schools is beginning 
to be closely involved in the great American " struggle 
between capital and labor," between the corporations and 
the unions. 

For school purposes, something may be said in favor of 
bench seats rather than individual chairs or connected 

1 This problem has been successfully solved in St. Louis by Mr. W. B. Ittner, architect 
to the board of education. 



EQUIPMENT 85 

opera sittings in the assembly hall. Sometimes, it is 
necessary to crowd three persons where two should go ; 
sometimes, it is desirable to clear the floor. And yet the 
best practice is to seat the assembly hall permanently 
with opera chairs. The floor should grade about 5 '. 

The question of the platform in class room and in assem- 
bly hall is really a question of schoolhouse construction, 
but a remark here is in order, notwithstanding. There 
should be no platform in any study or recitation room ; 
the teacher is expected to walk about the room. The 
chair of the teacher is only for occasional rest and change. 
But platforms are necessary in lecture rooms and assembly 
halls. The principle is that they should be as low as 
possible while accomplishing their purpose but as wide 
and as long as is architecturally convenient. The as- 
sembly hall platform should accommodate an entire class 
in gymnastic exhibitions and an entire cast in school 
theatricals. 

In lighting the hall, it is desirable to remember that 
lights near the ceiling caiLse the best diffusion through reflec- 
tion. It is possible to light a large room perfectly by 
indirect light. Low, direct chandelier lights are exceed- 
ingly trying to the eyes. In this same connection, it is 
profitable to note that the light for the reading desk upon 
the platform must be so perfectly concealed that no direct 
ray escapes forward to irritate the eyes of an audience that 
desires to be attentive. 

11)10, plat form furniture in a school assembly hall should 
be substantial, dignified, and beautiful; but it should not 
give the room the air of a church or chapel. A dozen 
handsome chairs all alike, a long wide table, and a light 
reading stand make a good equipment. 

Every school needs an assembly hall piano ; for normal 



86 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

and high schools, fine pipe organs are also desirable.^ 
Kindergartens should have good pianos? Every school 
should have also a music room, equipped with piano, reed 
organ, harp, and the smaller standard musical instruments. 
Let us meet the crass, coarse, defiant and discordant in- 
dividualism and materialism of our age with music. No 
people on earth so need and so lack music as ourselves. 

This music hall requires a platform and a sufficient com- 
plement of chairs for musicians and auditors.^ 

The art imiseuni will require cabinets and cases, wall 
frames, stained glass windows, tables and chairs, book- 
cases, and artificial lighting.* 

The library should consist of a reading room and stand- 
ard book stacks. Such a library is by no means to be con- 
fined to universities and colleges. The youth in grammar 
schools are in the reading age. One who does not learn 
to read as a habit before he is fifteen years old will never 
read as a habit after he is twenty-five. 

Farther pursuit of this interesting line of thought would 
carry us into the equipment of the wood and iron working 
rooms, the dressmaking and millinery rooms, the trade 
schools, proper toilet appliances,^ garden and tree outfits, 
furniture for principal's offices and teachers' rooms. Nor 
are these merely matters of " common sense." In the di- 
rection of American free public schools, the common sense of 
average men as board members has nearly destroyed educa- 
tion in many communities. It is a familiar observation that 

' There is a superb organ in the Morris Heights High School, Bronx Borough, N.Y. 
Many other high schools also now have excellent organs. 

^ Not "second-hand squares." A grand piano will cost $1000. A good upright $400 
to $500. 

3 The Eastern High School in Baltimore has a fine example of such a room. 

* St. Louis has made a fine beginning in both Nature and Art Museums. 

^ The devices in use in certain schools in the District of Columbia are perhaps the best 
anywhere, installed by Mr. Snowden Ashford, building inspector to the District Com- 
missioners. 



EQUIPMENT Sy 

to learn how to equip properly a modern school, superin- 
tendent, architect, and board must travel. To this, I would 
add, — And the superintendent must not believe that his 
livelihood depends upon the board and must learn to think 
and to speak the truth. In the course of time, his liveli- 
hood depends upon professional opinion of his services; 
and this opinion is, I am glad to say, dependent absolutely 
upon his loyalty to the cause of education and upon his 
professional ability, equipment, and honor. 

The first question about text-books is : Who is to pay 
for them ? Two practices are now struggling for control. 
The old practice was for the board (not the superintend- 
ent, who was but a clerk) to prescribe a very limited list 
of books and for the parents to buy them. The new prac- 
tice is for the board (upon the recommendation of the 
superintendent) to authorize or '* list " for use and to pur- 
chase a considerably augmented variety of books and to 
lend these to the pupils for use. Midway between these 
practices are several others. In some entire States, and 
in some chartered cities in other States, books and supplies 
are furnished only to indigent pupils ; in others, only to 
those who ask for them ; in at least one jurisdiction,^ to 
** all who are not otherwise supplied " ; while in still others, 
certain books are loaned, but other books must be pri- 
vately purchased. As an extreme in contrast with the 
private purchase of all books, there is now beginning in a 
few communities a practice of donating all books and sup- 
plies outright to the pupils — pauperizing them with books 
exactly as parents " pauperize " them with food, clothes, 
and shelter.^ 

What is the correct way ? The answer depends upon 

* The United States Government in the District of Columbia. 

* There is an age when such property should no longer be given to a youth of the male 
sex — say, eighteen years. 



88 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

one's philosophy of society and of life. When every fam- 
ily owns absolutely its own house, grounds, and gardens, 
in fee tail to the direct heirs inalienable, then the first 
practice of absolute self-reliance will be correct.^ Now, 
when most famiUes are tenants and most men merely 
wage-earners, the last practice is absolutely correct. When 
it becomes necessary to choose between books and food, 
the good parent must buy for his child the latter, because 
health is fundamental. 

This leaves the State to provide the books, — a necessary 
socialistic palliative, if child education is to be compulsory 
in an age of the poverty of " the many " both in city and 
in country. 

Where books are purchased by the parents, the board 
of education has a very delicate problem to solve. A 
superintendent in such a community does well to keep 
out of the public thought when it comes to changing books 
that otherwise would be handed down in the family from 
child to child. In other words, parental purchase of 
books limits in two ways the educational progress of a 
community : first, it blocks changes for the better ; and, 
second, it compels a very narrow supply of books and 
of other materials. This, be it understood, is not at all 
because of parental indifference to the welfare of the 
children, but because of parental poverty and of parental 
ignorance, which supposes that oral teaching can supply 
any and all deficiencies. 

Pupils really need at least one standard text-book in 
nearly every subject taught, and supplementary books 
for reading (literature), for history, for geography, and 
for each of the sciences. It is, no doubt, possible to 

1 Of course, in such an age, all producers of wealth will be part owners of the capital 
employed in wealth production. 



EQUIPMENT 89 

assign too many books to a child at one time ; but I 
do not know of any public school in the United States in 
which in the course of a year any class is required to study 
too many books. All the elementary school classes that 
I have ever visited had too few books to meet correct stand- 
ards and to fulfil proper ideals. Most classes are seriously 
lacking in text-books, pens, paper, tools, and the other gear 
of a really sijicere education. Perhaps, we should not expect 
anything else so long as public schools are governed by those 
who know nothing of the science and art of education. 

To say this is not to indorse the prevailing courses 
of study. These are almost everywhere too crowded be- 
cause not integral, and not true to the genesis and progress 
of human nature. But a philosophical and a psychological 
course of study, however coherent and integral, will require 
rather more books even than now, for it will emphasize far 
more than does the present opportunistic course the value 
of individual study and reading. 

A good text-book meets these requirements, viz. : — 

1. Its facts conform closely to the best knowledge at 
the time of its production. 

2. It incorporates a rational method : one that fairly 
interprets the data. 

3. It is not an epitome or a thesaurus of the subject, 
but an outline and an interpretation. 

4. It is interesting; it manifests humanity and style. 
It is not a patchwork but a creation. 

5. It is printed in large, clear type, 

a. with permanent black ink, 

b. upon cream paper of good texture, without 

gloss, save for the pictures. 

6. It is well bound in leather or cloth so that it will 
last a long time and stay clean on the outside. 



90 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

7. Though covering all the ground of its subject, it is 
not too big to hold in the hand. 

8. It is kept revised. 

Of books of this character, almost none can be secured in America. 

1. Our text writers seldom know their subjects. 

2. They try to develop the facts by a general method, not under- 
standing that every subject, properly capable of text-book treatment, 
has its own inherent, characteristic, and peculiar logic and method.^ 

3. The hardest of all books to read is the thesaurus, whether dic- 
tionary, encyclopaedia, or handbook. Next hardest is the epitome, 
which is suitable only for a person already learned in the subject. 

4. Most American text-books are ugly mosaics — of pieces stolen 
from other text-books. 

5. Type is generally too small, 11 -point is the smallest permissible 
for grades IV and above. Below IV, still larger type is requisite. 

6. Ink is usually poor. 

7. Paper is usually glazed and therefore too shiny. 5, 6, and 7 
cause many a child's eyes to fail. 

8. The bindings of American books are nearly all miserable ; 
hence, the cry in the case of school books for leatherette book covers, 
a confession of the vileness of the original bindings. 

9. The spongy quality of the binding makes it a good " culture " 
for disease germs. 

ID. Most American text-books do not cover aU the ground. 
II. Once on the market, the book stays there unchanged until 
forced out by competition.^ 

We do not know what a competent loan outfit would 
really cost for a school system per unit of pupils.^ No 
such loan outfit actually exists anywhere, though a few 

1 The work of our schools may be classified thus : — 

I Studies \ ^' Logical. The books for \, A may be strictly termed " text- 

' B. Informational. books." Those for I, B are " readers." Those for 

II. Exercises S ■^* Psychological. II are all at best only " manuals." 

I B. Physiological. 

2 States that manufacture their own schoolbooks do well to make them better than the 
commercial product. Well-made books would last ten years and like other good manufactures 
be " the cheapest in the end." 

3 The question of reducing the cost of books by State printing is now being answered 
through the experiment of California. 



EQUIPMENT 91 

cities approximate it. But an estimate may be worked 
out as follows, viz. : — 

Average total cost of normal school books for one pupil . . $6.00 

Ditto for high school pupil 5.00 

Ditto for grammar school pupil 4.00 

Ditto for primary school pupil (including supplementary 

books) 2.00 

Ditto for kindergarten pupil .50 

The above figures are low. 
For 100,000 pupils, divided as follows: 

Normal school 600 

High school . . . . . . . . • . 10,000 

Elementary schools 85,000 

Kindergartens 4j400 

The cost would be : — 

Normal school $3,6oo 

High school 50,000 

Elementary schools ........ 340,000 

Kindergartens ......... 2,200 

Total cost $395,800 

Average life of a book, four years. 

Average annual cost of loan outfit properly cared for and 

renewed $98,950 

Add 5 per cent for discarding inferior books .... 4^975 

Total annual cost of books $103,925 

Average annual cost of loan books per pupil .... $1.04 

I know a number of small cities and towns that spend 
more than the 1^1.04 per pupil for books; but I know of 
no large city that even approximates this figure. 

In addition to books, many States and a few chartered 
cities in other States profess to supply also paper, pen- 
cils, pens, wood, iron, cloth, thread, and everything else 
that is required in the daily work of the pupils. When 
this is actually done, the cost runs far beyond the cost of 
books. In mechanic arts high schools, the annual cost 



92 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

for tools, materials, and chemicals cannot be kept below 
i^io per pupil. In elementary schools, with manual train- 
ing courses, the cost will be half as large. 

No doubt this question of supplying books and mate- 
rials of every kind opens up the entire question of the 
proper relation of the individual to society. I have never 
yet heard it argued that books as well as tuition should be 
free to the men and women in State universities, except 
in so far as this argument is a minor constituent of the 
theory of socialism. Let knowledge be as free as the air, 
say some, and each man will become a living soul. For 
myself, I am inclined to the exactly opposite theory; as 
Jesus said, " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." ^ 
He was not suggesting work for wages, but work for the 
entire product, the profit increase above the cost of the 
raw materials. 

It must be noted before we pass from this theme, that 
a loan or gift outfit system requires for its intelligent and 
economical administration a competent bureau of purchas- 
ing and distributing agents, managers, clerks, and carriers. 

Every schoolroom requires a good dictionary, and every 
school one or more standard eiicyclopcedias, lexicons of the 
foreign languages, gazetteers, atlases, dictionaries of dates, 
of mythology, of the sciences, and of philosophy. 

In every school, there should be two kinds of libraries : 
the classroofn library of from one to four hundred books in 
constant circulation, and a general library of one thousand 
books or more.^ The books should include works upon 
travel, biography, history, poetry, science, and the best fic- 
tion. Of certain magazines, there should be complete files. 

1 No conclusion, however, is to be drawn from this that would force small children to 
work for their entire support. On the other hand, Pestalozzi was right in insisting that they 
should not be wholly economic parasites. — Leonard and Gertrude, 

2 See Catalogue of the Cleveland, O., Public Library. 



EQUIPMENT 93 

The principles for administering these libraries may be 
stated as follows, viz. : — 

1. The books should be in as constant circulation as is 
feasible. 

2. Books should not be taken from the classrooms or 
the general library except upon written record. 

3. The pupils should have reasonable access to all the 
books — to look them over and to taste them, as it were. 

4. The teachers and the librarians should know all the 
books. 

5. Of the best books, the general library may well have 
several copies. Mere multitude of titles is no criterion of 
good school library administration. 

The public library needs sufficient current funds to main- 
tain branches in at least a few of the public schools. At 
these branches, there should be loan collections of five 
hundred or more books, constantly in course of change. 
There should be also regular delivery stations for adults 
of the neighborhood, as well as for the children and youth 
of the schools. 

There rises here the question whether or not the public 
library should be part and parcel of the public school sys- 
tem. In not a few towns and cities, this plan is in suc- 
cessful operation. At any rate, the superintendent of 
schools should always be ex officio, or otherwise, a mem- 
ber of the library board of control. 

For the kindergarten equipment, there are required the 
standard kindergarten tables and chairs, the "gifts" of 
Froebel, cubes, splints, a large variety of "penny pic- 
tures," games, toy animals, picture books, sand table or 
box, dolls, tin soldiers, balls of rubber (hollow) or of 
worsted, bean bags, colored paper and cardboard, scissors 
(with square or rounded ends), flowers in pots and in 



94 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

boxes, garden tools, and general toys. The kindergar- 
ten child learns by doing under direction. His self- 
activity is to become regulated activity ; he is to be kept 
as happy as possible ; he has a right to his paradise. 
The more of the true kindergarten spirit that we can get 
into the elementary school, the better for our children.^ 

Every school for boys and girls above twelve years of 
age should have a separate gymnasium for each sex. Be- 
low this age, a few pieces of apparatus in the basement or 
halls will serve sufficiently well. In most cities, shower 
baths for small children are more important than gym- 
nasiums.2 

The proper equipment for a gymnasium is determined 
in part by the sex of those who are to use it, in part by 
their age, in part by their other opportunities for exer- 
cise, and in part by the climate. 

Each gymnasium should be in use all day long by 
squads of pupils under competent and sufficient direction. 
The shower baths may be a matter of building construc- 
tion in part, or wholly a matter of special equipment ; but 
the swimming tank must be a part of the building itself. 
The tendency is to build such tanks too deep and too 
square. For grammar schools, the following dimensions 
are adequate, viz.: — 

Length 40'. 

Width 16'. 

Depth below water level 3'6" to 5'. 

Height above water level i'6". 

The purpose of such a tank is not to afford a place for 
expert swimmers to practise diving, but to teach small 

1 Excluding the piano, a sufficient kindergarten equipment for thirty-five children costs 
about $200. The annual cost thereafter need not exceed $20. 

2 It is an unpleasant fact to those who would like to believe that everybody is happy in a 
country worth loving ; but unless our city children bathe at school, many of them will never 
bathe at all in winter, and they will grow up to be of " the great unwashed." 



EQUIPMENT 95 

boys how to swim well. When the smaller boys are being 
taught, the water level can be reduced a foot. This tank 
is not a bath tub : no boy should be allowed in it until he 
has taken a sufficient shower with lukewarm water and 
soap. In Japanese fashion, he washes before bathing. 

The gymnasium equipment should include anthropo- 
metric apparatus, — eye, ear, lung, spine testing machines, 
lockers for gymnasium clothes, dumb-bells, wands, swing- 
ing rings, chest weights, parallel bars, ladders, "horses," 
and similar apparatus, and may include a good running 
track and gallery for visitors. 

Unfortunately, we have come to think of laboratories as 
requisite only in universities, colleges, and high schools. 
But at least one good laboratory is desirable in every com- 
plete elementary school. Such a laboratory needs a sink, 
running water, a ventilating sulphide hood closet, a cabinet 
for chemicals, table boxes for germinating seeds, and 
other similar equipment for illustrating some of the sim- 
plest and fundamental facts and principles of Nature and 
natural science. 

The high school should have a system of laboratories 
and of lecture rooms. Every high school student should 
spend weekly at least one-quarter of his time in the study 
of science. As function determines structure in the world 
of life, so in the school the course of study should con- 
trol architecture; but as a general principle, it is safe 
to assign one-quarter of the space of a high school to 
rooms for the teaching of science. 

Decoration for schoolrooms is now a theme upon many 
tongues. The time is soon to come when suitable deco- 
ration in the class room will be as much a matter of course 
as an artistic front for the building. The walls should 
be colored with water-color paints, washable and easily 



96 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

renewed. For north rooms, which should never be class 
rooms, choose the warm reds and yellows ; for south rooms, 
the light greens. 

The problem of pictures and statuary for class rooms has 
not yet been satisfactorily solved. In elementary schools, 
color is desirable for the pictures ; but only artists can 
make, one by one, good colored pictures. Nor have we 
learned as yet how to choose for children the subjects of 
pictures and statues that at once instruct and interest them 
profitably. 

In the school yard there should be simple apparatus for 
games, play, and exercise ; such as horizontal bars, basket 
ball poles, swings, tennis posts. 

In a certain city, a teacher had upon her desk a plaster cast, about 
eighteen inches high, of a famous "prize fighter." In another city, 
upon the door of a schoolroom, was a great poster representing a small 
boy smoking his father's pipe. In a town school was a crude chromo 
representing several " sports " dining and wining some supposedly " gay " 
young actresses and chorus girls. Per contra, I have seen walls covered 
with sombre photographs, all religious in theme, all entirely out of the 
range of the six to eight year old children in the room. 

A school system needs a central building convenient to 
the offices of the superintendent and supervisors in which 
there are rooms of various kinds for various meetings. 
One room should accommodate several hundred teachers. 
Three, four, or five of these rooms should accommodate 
eighty to one hundred persons each. There should also be 
offices for the various directors and supervisors. In these 
rooms and offices, the heads can meet, after school and on 
Saturdays, such teachers as they may desire to instruct, 
to direct, or to consult regarding the prosecution of the 
class-room work. By having all these rooms and offices 
centralized, the superintendent can keep closely in touch 



EQUIPMENT 97 

with the work of all his immediate assistants, can equalize 
and standardize their demands upon the teachers, and can 
himself conveniently meet them. Like his subordinates, he 
has only twenty-four hours in the day in which to live and to 
work. Neither he nor his immediate assistants can afford 
to waste time going from building to building to counsel 
with here one and there two or three. When he visits 
schools, it should be to see the work of the children, not to 
direct the teachers. 

Each of these proposed rooms and offices needs a suitable 
equipment. The music room should have several pianos, 
the art room a complete studio equipment, the physical 
culture room its proper apparatus.-^ 

The establishment of Schoolhouse Commissions in such commu- 
nities as Boston and (by Act of Congress) the District of Columbia is 
noteworthy evidence of the distrust of the fitness of laymen in educa- 
tional matters. In Boston, the commission consists of an architect, a 
building contractor, and a lawyer : for Washington, it consists of the 
supervising architect of the United States Treasury, the engineer com- 
missioner of the District of Columbia (detailed from the Army engineer 
corps), and the superintendent of schools. In other cities, boards of 
public works are being given the duties of acquiring sites and building 
schoolhouses. 

Wisconsin has recently created municipal manual training boards of 
five members, all of whom must be professional educators or certificated 
expert mechanics. 

The removal of these powers and responsibilities from boards of 
education shuts them into what can be considered only the strictest kind 
of professional work, e.^., selection of text books, making of courses of 
study, and appointing teachers. Two results fpllow : the boards under- 
take to make the superintendents clerks ; and the legislatures talk of 
doing away with boards m toto.^ 

1 This problem is admirably worked out in Rochester, N.Y. 
* Vt'de Appendix A, 2, and G. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE PUPIL 

Of course, this book, every book that deals in any way 
with education, should centre upon the boy or girl to be 
educated. We hear much about the educator, but we 
have not even the term the "educatee," whom now we 
may briefly consider. This is the last factor in the city 
school system. For want of knowledge of this factor, 
most educational equations are not solved.^ 

The world of the child consists of his playmates, — 
brothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors ; of his parents, 
grandparents, uncles, aunts, and other relatives ; of his 
pets and toys ; of natural phases and objects, — day, night, 
summer, winter, trees, flowers, birds, brooks; of books, — 
their pictures and, to an extent, their characters and 
descriptions ; and of the echoes of his soul, in which the 
experiences of his ancestors find reverberating voices. Of 
himself as an ego or identity with purposes, habits, ideals, 
there is very little consciousness. Occasionally, some adult 
— a teacher, a story-telling man or woman, a fisherman 
or other adventurer — breaks in upon his consciousness at 
its periphery ; it may be reaches even the heart of him. 
The little child lives through more sensations in a day 
than the youth does in a week or the adult in a year. So 
many and great are the differences between child and 

1 It is beyond the scope of a book upon the administration of city schools to deal with the 
pupil in education generally considered. But the pupil as the subject of organization, of ad- 
ministration, of supervision, of direction, and of management certainly deserves a chapter to 
himself 

98 



THE PUPIL 99 

adult that neither can or does comprehend or understand 
the other. The child fears, loves, it may be reveres the 
grown-up, who for his part despises or compassionates 
the little one. Necessarily the great man, of the best edu- 
cation and of the largest culture, goes about uncompre- 
hended, misunderstood by other adults : wherein comes 
the mystery that the genius and the child are very near 
to one another — they are upon the same centre, which 
is the following of the inner light. 

Children differ from one another far more than do the 
socialized adults around them, whom, indeed, they but 
dimly perceive as remote gods or daimons, whom they 
feel rather than comprehend. These are the units whom 
the teachers must organize into classes and schools. So 
to organize them the adults proceed somewhat as follows, 
viz. : — 

1. The children within the limits of a particular vicin- 
age go to school together. In some localities, the school 
districts are sharply demarked ; in others, the lines are 
traditional and not absolutely mandatory. 

2. But there is a certain cross-sectioning and combining 
in respect to various ages. Seldom do kindergarten, ele- 
mentary, secondary, and graduate students go for instruc- 
tion to the same building. They seldom go to the same 
group of buildings. In nearly all communities of large 
population, there are at least four well-recognized ages 
and lines of separation : — 

a. From infancy to childhood, at six years of age : 
Kindergarten to Elementary. 

b. From childhood to early adolescence, at fourteen 
years of age : Elementary to Secondary. 

c. Early to middle adolescence: Secondary to Colle- 
giate. 



lOO OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

d. Middle to later adolescence : Collegiate to Graduate.^ 

3. In some communities, there is a vertical dividing in 
the separation of boys and girls. Strange traditions pre- 
vail. Some communities separate children below fourteen 
years of age ; others separate them between fourteen and 
nineteen ; still others, only after nineteen ; some, not at all ; 
and others always. Is there a guiding principle ? 

Those who desire to increase the final attraction of men 
and of women would keep them separate until late adoles- 
cence or full adulthood. Those who desire to humanize 
both fully — men and women to be integral as far as possible 
and not simply complementary — are for coeducation. 
There is a profound philosophy in each view.^ Women 
brought up with one another alone from early childhood 
have a depth and a richness and a fineness of sentiment 
beyond the coeducated ; but this is at the expense of 
energy, of judgment, and of wholesomeness. From this 
line as a basis of departure, the arguments lead to the 
antipodes.^ 

4. Everywhere, let it not be forgotten, there is classifi- 
cation primarily by ages.^ This may not appear true super- 
ficially ; but it is none the less the reality. We say that 

^ These may be challenged. For Middle and Southern Americans, thirteen is nearer the 
beginning of adolescence for boys and twelve for girls. Were this sincerely recognized, there 
would be more boys and girls in Southern high schools and academies. Even in the North, 
the four years of secondary education are too few. From the physiological point of view, 
high school courses should be six years in duration, from thirteen to nineteen years of age for 
Middle Americans. The fourth stage is misplaced. Later adolescence seldom begins before 
twenty-two or -three years of age in young men, and in Middle America before nineteen or 
twenty years of age in young women. Here the coeducation of the sexes at equal ages fails. 

2 Because I am absolutely a democrat, an equal suffragist, anti-class and anti-caste, I 
cannot logically accept at any stage the separate education of the sexes; but if there is to be 
any separation at all, it promises most good and least harm after early adolescence, i.e. after 
eighteen in boys and sixteen in girls of Middle America. This, however, is really after edu- 
cation is fairly completed and when culture has become the aim. For the distinction, vide 
Motives, Ideals and Values, p. 342. Vide also p. 107, infra. 

3 Per contra, Hall, Adolescence: its Psychology, Chapter vii. 
Vide Appendix LXVIII. 



THE PUPIL lOI 

the boy of six, if not below mediocrity, should know so 
much. By mediocrity, we mean an average and a relative, 
not an absolute, amount. Mediocrity is the average of 
those not distinctly backward ; that is, arrested in develop- 
ment. 

5. Everywhere, irrespective of promotion schemes, the 
seasons govern the course of study, and cause us to cut it 
into annual sections. Moreover, the day again cuts it. 

6. Everywhere, the conventions, religious and economic, 
a third time cut the courses into weeks, and a fourth time 
into sections between holidays.^ 

7. Everywhere, the fatigue limits finally do control in 
two ways. In the first instance, we determine how much 
of this study or that the pupils above submediocre can 
stand, and so much we give them hour by hour. In the 
second instance, the submediocre, as soon as they escape 
the State tyranny of compulsory education laws, leave 
school and try to accommodate themselves to their own 
proper fatigue limits.^ 

8. Everywhere, we try to compromise the two rival 
claims : of the boy to be educated, — who needs to acquire 
habits, ideals, and principles, and to grow in physical 
strength, — and of society to be supplied with workers for 
its tasks. It is a ceaseless struggle, as it were, between 
applied psychology and applied sociology. Generally the 
victory seems to be to society ; but now and then as by 
miracle arises the man who will not conform, but who must 
teach by example the higher truth that individuals are 

1 Consider how our school courses would differ were our days twice as long, our years 
twice as long, and our holidays four times as far apart ! On the contrary, were our days 
half as long, our years half as long, and our holidays but one-fourth as far apart ! On the 
assumption, that psychological rate and time remain the same. 

^ A striking confirmation of this comes in the recent discoveries that most criminals are 
without education and require eyeglasses, eye-operations, ear-drums, spinal cures, etc. In 
short, they commit crime because of fatigue and its toxic poisons, or of other physical stresses. 



I02 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

eternal, societies temporal. The course of study is in conse- 
quence Janus-faced. Yet the moment that we think to 
condemn it entirely as utilitarian and materialistic, we dis- 
cover some item or quality purely spiritual and educative. 

9. Everywhere, in the beginning, we try to educate all 
together, — the dull, the mediocre, the clever, and the bril- 
liant; the abnormal, the subnormal, the normal, and the 
supernormal ; the perfect, the typical, the defective, and 
almost the monstrous, until there dawns upon us that edu- 
cation is not regimentation but integration and differentia- 
tion by consciously produced evolution ; and then we begin 
to discriminate, to separate, to segregate, and really in most 
cases to educate. 

10. We understand in the end, then, that to attempt to 
educate upon sociological grounds for whatever purpose, 
— industrial, commercial, artistic, or professional, is to 
educate, if at all, accidentally and indirectly, not inten- 
tionally, or as completely as we might. We conclude that 
we must educate by true psychogenetics : which is not the 
recapitulation or culture epochs theory, but a theory of the 
evolution of functions of the mind, — an evolution of mo- 
tives, of ideals, and of principles. We set up not the attain- 
ment of quantitative measures of this and of that as the test 
and evidence of education, but the manifestation of certain 
qualities, which we summarize as intelligence, efficiency, 
and morality. These qualitative evidences we recognize 
as in series : intelligence the first power or function, as 
it were, of motivation ; efficiency, the second power ; and 
morality as the third power, the highest of the three and 
built of them, being in essence the same.^ 

■1 Here the theory of the triune nature of man as an intelligent, efficient, and moral being 
breaks down after serving its purpose, which is to show how liberty in order is possible to 
man. Here unity appears as in truth the whole of his nature. Cf. Froebel, Education 0/ Man. 



THE PUPIL 103 

II. In consequence, at last, we return to the education 
of individuals ; and the teacher becomes in spirit the 
tutor of one child. For the brief time of the recitation 
and of the counsel, the rest of the class are but witnesses 
of the true school, which is a relation between two, the one 
who knows and the one seeking to know.^ 

Upon these principles and such as these, — in part in 
accordance with the necessities of his situation, that is, the 
qualities of his board of education, of his teachers, and 
of his community, the size and extent of his buildings and 
equipment, the amount of annual revenue for expenses, 
the legislation of the State and the existent rules and 
regulations of the board, and his own knowledge and skill ; 
in part in accordance with the traditions of the profession or 
occupation of teaching ; and only in part in accordance with 
the real nature of the child, — the educator proceeds to in- 
form and to evolve the educatee. With him. Nature, the 
kind mother of us all, conspires, for she intends to make of 
every child all of which he is capable. Usually, Nature fails. 
Usually, the precious nascent periods pass unnoticed ; some- 
times, they are defied. Civilization is largely inhibition of 
the poetic, the creative. The boy would grow far more, 
far better, were he more free to grow. But he does grow ; 
and education gets much credit that really belongs to 
Nature.^ 

From the principles here distinguished, certain conclu- 
sions follow. Some of these conclusions are so patent 
and so potent that intelligent communities have already 
put them into practice. 

I. School communities should be delimited rather by 

» Vide Our Schools, Chapter IX. 

2 Were it not for our faith that the soul, which is here confined, may, must elsewhere be 
freed, that God will yet have His way with each of us, from their present rebellion against 
things as they are between the eternities, many would effloresce into insanity. 



104 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

social considerations than by political boundaries. Trans- 
fers of pupils from school to school should be made when- 
ever educational principles so dictate. Ward schools, 
with strictly preserved artificial limits, are indefensible.^ 
The work done in these local schools should supplement 
the needs of such schools rather than merely emphasize 
and enforce their interests. Let the city child have all 
the Nature-study possible. 

2. It is desirable to separate students into at least four 
groups, viz. : — 

2 years. Kindergarten : below seven years of age. 

6 years. Primary : from seven to thirteen years. 

6 years. Secondary : from fourteen to nineteen years 
of age. 

Unlimited. Higher : above nineteen years of age. 

These, students should not go to school together. Be- 
tween successive groups there are conflicts of motives, of 
ideals, of physical conditions, of social relations, and of 
powers. Merely to illustrate this matter and with no de- 
sire to complete the presentation, one may cite these 
propositions, viz. : — 

I. Under seven years of age, no child should go to 
school more than once a day, or stay over three hours 
under guidance, or be required to go with daily regularity, 
or to follow one particular exercise over fifteen minutes 
continuously, or be confined to desk and chair, or be 
trained to study (read) anything, or be taught by more 
than one teacher. 

II. From seven to thirteen years of age, no child 
should be in school over five hours a day, or over three 

' A city with one hundred schools should have each school both named and numbered, e.g. 
"The Abraham Lincoln School, Number 89, Chicago." The combination of name and city 
number teaches the child daily the unity of civic patriotism. 



THE PUPIL 105 

hours at a session, or over two hundred days in the year, 
or be required to follow one particular exercise over thirty 
minutes continuously, or be confined to desk and chair 
over an hour at a time, or to take any work home for 
study in the evening,^ or to have less than two teachers 
daily. 

III. From fourteen to nineteen years of age, the boy 
is neither child nor man. From thirteen to seventeen 
years of age, in Middle America, the girl of English stock 
is not child and is scarcely woman. Schooling is now a 
notably different problem from schooling before early 
adolescence. Unfortunately, no city in America has yet 
established neighborhood high schools, as America must 
and will in the day when we have learned that early ado- 
lescence is the one period for education as preadolescence 
is the true period for schooling. No child should need to 
go over a mile to school. On this basis, boys and girls in 
secondary schools should be in school six hours daily ,2 but 
not over three hours continuously ; and the interim at 
noon should be not less than an hour and a half, prefera- 
bly two hours. They should have at least three different 
teachers each day, and not over five. A single recitation 
may be as long as forty-five minutes in duration. The 
habit of going to school daily, acquired in the preceding 
period, may be encouraged in the case of the boys; but 
not in that of the girls. Home study in language, in liter- 
ature, in literary science, in history, and home exercises 
of a laboratory nature may be encouraged as a directive 

1 There is much to be said in favor of maintaining school sessions six mornings and three 
or four afternoons in the week. Home study must either deprive the child of play in the late 
afternoon or compel intellectual effort and enforce physical restraint in the evening (after the 
city dinner). This may seem for a while to promote the interests of an individual, but it will 
ruin a race. In the preadolescent period, the child must accumulate vital reserves. 

2 No teachers, however, should stay over four hours, with not over three hours of teach- 
ing daily. 



Io6 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

of the adolescent revery ; but not to the point of over- 
fatigue.^ 

IV. Above nineteen years of age, that youth prospers 
who has found himself in earlier adolesgence, and who 
thereafter follows the inner light, seeking his own pole 
star. The days of hygienic prescription by superior per- 
sons are nearly over. Life is more or less conscious 
obedience to maxims, to proceed gradually into obedience 
to principles. There is much yet to learn ; but the funda- 
mentals already acquired are seldom unlearned. In the 
city school system of the present time, there is usually 
a normal school ; and occasionally, a college. In the city 
system of the future, there will certainly be the teachers' 
college ^ and the university. Influenced by the elementary 
and secondary schools, the higher schools of the city, 
collegiate, graduate, and professional, will tend to be more 
systematic in their programmes than are the endowed 
colleges and universities or even the present State univer- 
sities. They will offer work throughout the year, summer 
and winter, fitting the topics in a measure to the season, 

1 In these adolescent boys and girls, there are three fatigue levels: (i), tiring from the 
successive impulses to effort before persistence in effort is established. (2) True fatigue be- 
cause of wilful persistence in effort continued until the ordinary surplus of energy is actually 
exhausted. (This corresponds to wearing out the "second wind" in running.) (3) Over- 
fatigue because of excited continuance in systematic endeavor after the physical energy is 
consumed. (In this phase, the mind is dominant.) No boy or girl should ever need to go 
to bed suffering from the effects of overfatigue. During the entire period of childhood and 
youth such a condition may be excusable upon a few occasions between sunrise and sunset 
to test and " try out " a young athlete or scholar; but it is an intoxication fully as perilous as 
that which is induced by poisons and drugs, introduced externally into the system. 

In adults, there are five fatigue levels. These may be considered as manifestations of 
the results of first, second, third, fourth, and fifth powers or functions of motivation, of intel- 
lection, and of volition. Genius short-circuits easily to the same results as those of talent pro- 
ceeding circuitously to its highest levels. Preceding each fatigue level is a brief period of 
excitement when the mind scintillates. 

These are the general and normal fatigue-levels. Eye-strain, spinal curvature, acid and 
alkaline diatheses, anseraia, primary and secondary neurasthenias, and other similar ills more 
or less affect arrival at and delay upon each level. 

' If so, why not colleges for other professions and skilled occupations ? 



THE PUPIL 107 

with heavier work, of course, in the colder weather.^ They 
will tend to reduce the daily working period to the com- 
mercial and industrial plan of eight day-hours under high 
pressure, with the after-dinner work, if any, recreative and 
at low pressure. They will be executive in spirit, not quite 
so academic perhaps as now, more pragmatic, cultural 
rather than educative. The seminars, conferences, and 
clubs will be in the early evening. To acquire knowledge, 
to express it with skill, to see and to put things in their 
relations, to perfect a health of body, already well estab- 
lished : in other words, science, art, philosophy, and per- 
sonal hygiene will be the progressive, cumulative aims of 
these higher schools of learning. 

3. There will be separation of boys and girls and of 
young men and young women upon occasion and for 
cause. Democracy is coeducational in its conviction ; it 
will end in equal rights of every kind ; this may, indeed, be 
a cause of its end. Certain subjects cannot be taught at 
all to both sexes at the same time. Some subjects can best 
be taught in isolation. The real subject of education is, of 
course, the pupil ; it is only in the cultural aspect of the 
course of study — for schools of pupils above thirteen 
years of age — that coeducation is logical. In consequence 
of this philosophy, biology, for example, will become a 
required study for girls, while physiology and hygiene will 
be taught in separate classes. In large cities, some high 
schools will probably be for boys, others for girls, while 
most will be coeducational. This raises the question 
whether there shall be separate mechanic arts and " busi- 
ness " high schools, or whether all high schools shall be 
general. The tendency in this respect is to offer a variety : 

1 In his Annual Report for 1907, Superintendent Wm. H. Maxwell of New York proposes 
summer sessions for high schools. 



I08 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

some high schools should be general, with classical, scien- 
tific, commercial, technical, and literary courses ; while 
others in the same city should be wholly classical or tech- 
nical or commercial. But one feature of this tendency 
to variety of schools, of departments, and of courses is 
entirely to be condemned ; this feature is the introduction 
of subjects for sociological (that is, utilitarian or mate- 
rialistic) reasons. Absolutely no subject of instruction in 
any course for boys and girls under eighteen or nineteen 
years of age should be pursued for any other reason than 
that it is educative. What the world most needs, sorely 
needs, is the man of motives, of ideals, of principles — the 
educated man. 

4. The principle of associating children primarily by 
ages needs to be converted, transformed, and transmuted 
into the principle of associating them by their stages of 
development.^ It may be that there are back currents and 
eddies ; and a child may be younger as compared with 
" average " children at nine than he was at seven. How- 
ever, the true test is not the superficial one of extent and 
accuracy of knowledge and of proficiency in expression, 
but the substantial one of energy, of motivation, of volition, 
of intellection, of self-control, and of self-direction. This 
subtler and truer test we must learn to make. We must 
grade and promote children not by ages, not by knowledge, 
not by past attainments, but by powers to go forward.^ 
There is not revolution, but true reform in this proposition. 

^ There is a single feature of etymological history worth noting, as an aside. Words of 
similar sound often come from roots containing one vague idea : age, cage, page, rage, stage ; 
life, wife, rife, knife, strife, fife ; of this principle, poetry has availed itself freely. The matter 
goes far deeper than mere sensation ; it lies beyond onomatopoeia ; for it concerns the soul. 
Here is the secret of the origin of language. Emerson disliked words beginning with sn. 

2 The research into psychical age offers rich promise ; but even physical age is not clearly 
understood. It can be recovered for exposition only in the light of historical somatology. 
This problem is extremely complicated because of the mixed racial heritages of our 



THE PUPIL 109 

The determining principle becomes clear that the more 
we differentiate and integrate our schools and courses, and 
the more we distinguish, isolate, and group the different 
kinds of boys and girls, the more likely we are to educate. 
This principle cuts far below the two notions : that we 
should allow the boy to follow his bent, to develop himself 
where his power is ; and the converse, that education is 
supplemental, makes strength out of weakness, straightens 
the bent, rounds out the circle, founds itself upon the truth 
that education has no external aim, no objective measures, 
no standards of authority, but is full of faith in the soul as 
its own mentor. This is a hard doctrine ; it is bed rock, it 
is the soul asserting itself as one and integral, eternal, 
final, self-governed, self-justified, as part and parcel of the 
universal spirit. 

people. Five racial stocks contribute to the American people; and our school pupils vary 
as they represent greater or smaller portions of the blood of these stocks, (i) The stock 
numerically most important is the Alpine, — Celtic in the east of Europe, Slavic in the west. 
The characteristics of this stock are: — broad head, short, stout body, blue eyes or gray, 
brown or sandy hair. They are patient, sessile, altruistic, communal, sympathetic, indus- 
trious, persevering, practical, philosophical. (2) The stock spiritually most significant is the 
Teutonic. Characteristics : — long, narrow, deep head, tall, strong body, blue eyes, flaxen or 
tawny hair. They are vigorous, roaming, egoistic, feudal, individualistic, passionate, war- 
loving, executive, creative. (3) Historically, the oldest stock, which now has few pure 
representatives, is the Mediterranean. Characteristics : — long, narrow head, tall, thin body, 
black hair, black or brown eyes. They are keen, eager, selfish, emotional, sentimental, 
artistic and poetic. A boy of the Mediterranean stock (Southwest Italy) is as mature at six- 
teen years of age as an Alpine (Swiss) at twenty or a pure Teuton (Central Sweden) at 
twenty four. (4) A minor race is the " Old British." Characteristics: — round head, black 
hair and eyes, short, strong body. Solid, intense, brooding, warlike, communal. These four 
stocks are already mixed in America, and are mixing more every year. (5) Our Negroes 
(" Afro-Americans ") mix them and some four or five Negro (African) stocks also. Of their 
"white" blood, our "blacks" have a large portion of Ibero (Mediterranean) Celt plus some 
Teuton from the Portuguese and Spanish peoples. Vide Deniker, Sergi, Shufelt, Dowd, 
Ripley, Thomas, and Du Bois. . 

In the vast masses of our whites and mulattoes, our Creoles, Indians and Ladinos are at 
present perhaps sociologically negligible; but American history and romance will always 
find them profitable themes. 

The theory of the value of prolonged infancy should be supplemented by the theory of the 
value of a prolonged adolescence. Vide Fiske and Butler. 



CHAPTER VII 

SPECIAL SCHOOLS 

A CERTAIN portion of humanity, variable in town and 
city, in different regions, with different racial stocks and 
linguistic families, may safely be brought together into 
one regular system of schools for education. Without 
physiological or psychological warrant, we Americans, how- 
ever, have agreed rather generally in all our States that 
practically all boys and girls may be so brought together ; 
and unfortunately, where the public ignorance is greatest, 
and often in the very place where the portion safely to 
be placed in regular schools is smallest, there uniformity 
of educational procedure is most completely enforced. 

There are several causes for this popular insistence 
upon universal uniformity. Of these, the first in the pub- 
lic attention is the immediate financial economy thereby 
realized. Simplicity of school organization tends to raise 
the number of pupils per teacher and to lower the number 
of teachers per supervisor. This secures a low expense per 
pupil for instruction and a low expense per teacher for 
supervision. Two examples will make this clear : — 

The city A has 10,000 pupils The city B has 10,000 pupils 

I superintendent i superintendent 

50 directors and supervisors No directors or supervisors 

70 special teachers No special teachers 

24 building principals without No building principals without 

classes to teach classes to teach 

12 ungraded classes No ungraded classes 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS III 

The city A has 10,000 pupils The city B has 10,000 pupils 

36 kindergartens with instructor No kindergartens 

and an assistant in each 

260 class teachers 250 class teachers 

75 " extra " evening school No " extra " evening teachers 

teachers 

The actual cost per pupil in A is 1^36 annually, in B 
$1"/, or less than half as much. The actual cost of super- 
vision per class teacher in A is 1^720; in B is j^io, that is, 
2-5-5- of the salary of the superintendent, which is {^2500. 
The superintendent in A receives {^4000. The cost of 
"extra" teachers in A as compared with B is almost 
;^200,ooo, while B pays for all school purposes but 
^170,000. These are extreme cases; but they are true. 
Obviously, all the weight of argument appears to be in 
favor of the taxpayer who is parsimonious and considers 
only the immediate present. 

A second cause is that it is easy to understand the 
simple, low-cost collocation of schools.^ The general public 
sees only the teacher and the child as the school and, until 
clearly shown the other factors in complete education, 
knows nothing whatever about them. 

In a certain city, an economical board of education decided that an 
ungraded, individual class for incorrigibles and habitual truants was 
unnecessary, and voted to dispense with it. At the time of disbandment, 
there were 16 pupils. This meant but one or two more pupils to each 
of about a dozen teachers, and, according to the argument of the board 
member who moved the resolution, " saved the taxpayers the salary of a 
$900 teacher." But, as usual, appearances deceived, for before the 
year was out, because of the presence of these troublesome boys in 
these dozen classes, it became necessary to reduce several schools 
from an average of 50 pupils per teacher to an average of 40, and to 
employ 4 additional class teachers. This, however, cut both ways, 
making positions for friends. 

1 Vide pages 33-37, sztpra. 



112 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

A third cause for uniform classification of pupils in 
regular common schools is the democratic notion that all 
persons, young and old, because they are equal before the 
law, are equal in intelligence, industry, and character, or at 
least sufficiently so to be afforded the same instruction. 
The generality of men object to any kind of classification, 
not less to the kinds that subtly imply to certain persons 
the right to separate the inferior and the peculiar from 
the mediocre or better and the typical, than to the kinds 
that openly assign to certain other persons the right to 
"live without work" upon the products of the workers. 
An "average" man is irritated when his child is pro- 
nounced "different" from other children. He wishes the 
boy taught "the same as others." Because it implies a 
superiority denied by the democratic slogan of equality, he 
resents the assertion by "authorities " of the right to 
decide whether the boy is normal, abnormal, or subnor- 
mal. In consequence, he objects to practically any and 
every kind of special school. 

A fourth cause why universal uniformity finds social 
support is that most men and women do not know or 
understand what education is. We may divide the popu- 
lation into three classes, — the tmschooledy the schooled but 
uneducated, and the educated} The last, who have experi- 
enced and understood education, are and always will be 
but few in number. That education must take each child 
where it finds him and educate him out of his actual pres- 
ent condition, that he and not arithmetic or language is 
the subject of education, that he undergoes a process of 
internal change, is incredible because it is incomprehensi- 
ble to most persons, because they have not experienced 
this process,^ This is not to say that most children are 

1 Vide page 23, supra. - Vide Bagley, The Educative Process. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS II3 

incapable of education, — my own belief goes farther in 
the opposite direction than the foregoing phrase suggests, 
— but it is to say that in their childhood most adults of 
the present time did not experience the advantage of real 
education. In order to experience education, the children 
of to-day and to-morrow must be offered each moment the 
kind of education requisite for their individual needs : in 
other terms, there must be special schools for the care of 
all kinds of peculiar persons except the supernormal.^ 

The first reason for a complete system of general and 
special schools rests in physiology and psychology. The 
second reason is founded upon economics and sociology. 

In the present economic regime, most families are so 
poor as to require at the earliest possible age the service 
or the earnings of each child. It is wrong to dispute this 
proposition. With mothers overworked and underfed and 
with younger children also underfed and with the entire 
family in overcrowded quarters, there is for the older 
children no escape from economic work as soon as they 
are able to perform it without immediate and obvious- detri- 
ment to themselves. From this predicament of the fifteen- 
year-old boys and girls of the masses, who form the great 
majority of at least urban and suburban, if not rural, Ameri- 
cans, there are but two modes of escape for society. One 
is to overthrow the present economic regime, by which, as 
every statistician knows, only 20 per cent^ of the product 

1 The suggestion that in the schools for idiots and defectives there is an analogy for the 
institution of schools for genius and great talents is incorrect. The genius is one who absorbs 
more of society than the mediocre, and must, therefore, live in society. The way to destroy 
genius is to isolate it. (Baldwin, Mental Development, Volume II, Chapter V.) Moreover, 
genius can find in schools no competent teachers. In the presence of the world of society 
and by reflection in solitude upon what he has observed in society, the genius teaches and 
educates himself. This is not to be taken as an objection to advanced groups. 

2 Even the orthodox statisticians and economists do not challenge this fact; they justify it. 
According to certain sociologists, by means of this economic inequity, democracy is building 



114 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

is paid to the laboring producer; the other is to amelio- 
rate this particular defect of the existing social order by 
providing some kind of paid work for part of the day of 
every school-child who is able to do any economic work at 
all. I am persuaded by my own experience that to avoid 
the cataclysm of the first mode of escape, we must soon 
adopt the radicalism of the second. On no other basis do 
I see how compulsory education through the really impor- 
tant educable period, from ten to eighteen, inclusive, can 
be righteously and wisely enforced.^ 

It follows that since every child as he is should be edu- 
cated for society as it is growing to be, there should be 
special schools for all classes and cases. Modern society 
is extremely complex; it is in reality incomprehensibly 
complex; no man understands it. We need workers of 
every kind : we need the variety that Nature intends us to 
have by bringing to birth persons of such various kinds. 
The school best serves this civilization when it develops all 
varieties of human nature. There is, no doubt, a certain 
quality in the school that tends and should tend to har- 
monize all classes and kinds of men ; but we have mistaken 
harmony for uniformity. 

Upon these considerations is founded the argument for 
special schools as complements of the regular school. 

The evening school exists for the working youth of our 
society, the class that most deserves education. Operat- 
ing at night, when the body is suffering from more or 
less fatigue, often depriving the members of the class of 

up many social institutions in the midst of whose conflicts the individual is to win freedom at 
once personal and social. 

* Every important educational thinker in Europe, where civilization has long been rela- 
tively mature, has, in some form or other, announced this proposition. Our own civilization 
has now reached a similar maturity ; and manifests, therefore, a similar need for a sufficient 
number of sufficiently educated men and women to carry on the civilization. Vide Motives, 
Ideals, and Values, p. 223. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS II5 

needed rest and sleep, and taught usually by teachers who 
have spent their best strength upon day classes, the prob- 
lem of the evening school is in itself hard enough, were it 
not also complicated by external troubles. This charac- 
teristic problem of the evening school is how to educate 
boys and girls over thirteen or fourteen years ^ of age who 
cannot attend day sessions. 

One of the external difficulties of the evening school is 
to get enough competent teachers who are physically able 
to do the work without ruining their fitness for teaching 
day classes. 

A plan in use in at least one Eastern city ^ is to add to the roll of 
regular teachers a number equal to one-half of the entire number re- 
quired for evening classes, and then to place on day half-time all the 
teachers who have evening classes. From this plan there are the fol- 
lowing results, viz. : — 

1 . As many classes in day schools have two teachers daily, one for 
the mornings, one for the afternoons, as there are evening classes. 

2. The evening school teachers give 

3 hours in the morning, or 
3 hours in the afternoon, and 
2 hours in the evening, 

so that in actual hours of teaching no teachers give instruction for over 
five hours daily. 

3. There is no evening school pay-roll : and there is consequently 
no unique financial question as to how many dollars per evening the 
day-and-evening teacher shall receive. By this system, all teachers of 
equal experience, education, and success are paid alike. 

4. There is a marked tendency to keep the evening schools open as 
many months as the day schools. 

1 Theoretically, no pupils under the upper compulsory attendance age limit are present 
in the evening school. Practically, despite sworn age affidavits of parents and of physicians, 
search of birth registers and neighbors' hearsay evidence, and despite fines and even im- 
prisonment of parents for disobeying the law, there are usually present in an evening school 
some children who are too young and immature to pursue the courses suitable for the 
other members of the various classes of the school. 

2 Passaic, N.J, 



Il6 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

5. There is also a marked tendency to treat the evening schools not 
as makeshifts and time occupiers, but as integral, essential parts of the 
modern educational system. 

6. Competition to get positions as teachers in evening schools for 
the sake of the " extra money " ceases. 

Another difficulty of the evening school is to get proper 
accommodations without interfering with the accommoda- 
tions of the day classes. In an ideal state of society, there 
would be no need of evening schools. Consequently, it is 
not competent to say that in ideal conditions there would 
be separate buildings for evening classes. What we should 
work toward is an educational situation in which no youth 
shall leave day school until educated. Health absolutely 
demands the day (from sunrise to sunset) as the time for 
being educated, and the night for absolute rest.^ But 
until that epoch arrives, when " leaving school " shall be 
synonymous with "being educated," we shall need in our 
school buildings proper room and equipment for evening 
as well as day pupils. 

The standard elementary school building should accommodate two 
kinds of pupils, — the day and the evening. It should have small lockers 
10" X 12" X 20" or 24" into which can be placed the books, paper, pen- 
cils, etc., of the day and evening pupils (one locker per pupil), so that 
neither set of pupils will interfere with the other. It should have also 
separate closets in each room and separate storerooms for day and 
evening use so that the two staffs of day and evening principals and 
teachers may work independently. So long as the evening faculty can 
borrow from the day faculty, it will be impossible to provide the even- 
ing school with sufficient material in the way of books, tools, and other 
supplies. 

The standard high school should accommodate three kinds of pupils, 

^ Artificial light has deceived us as to the real facts of our physical needs and, indeed, 
necessities. In cities, we now have two '' days," the day of sunlight and the day of electric 
(and gas) light. Therefore, the modern city more than the ancient imperils our racial 
vitality and continuance. Modern scientific sanitation is but a palliative. Life may be 
lengthened ; but the birth rate falls and physical strength declines. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS II7 

— the all-day attendants, the half-day (morning or afternoon) attend- 
ants, and the evening attendants. Lockers should be provided accord- 
ingly. The economy as well as the security of this scheme has proven 
itself so clearly that its success is assured. Originating in Boston, it is 
now spreading widely. 

For the evening-school pupil, we need a different kind 
of text-book from that required for the day pupil. For the 
kind of study that he can pursue with profit, the former is 
characteristically " over-age." In his readers and histories, 
he needs more mature, though not less simple, truth than 
the day pupil can comprehend. The evening-school boy 
or man, girl or woman, is always a person of at least some 
worldly experience : he has earned money and has " mixed " 
with people. He is a wage-earner and knows "society." 
Too often he is d/ase. Therefore, he needs in his school 
books corrective as well as directive information.^ 

Among the books required for the proper instruction of 
evening pupils are texts on the various trades that should 
be taught in these schools. Such trades should be included 
as meet the following requirements, viz. : — 

1. Each trade taught should be educative, and that not 
merely in the disciplinary sense, 

2. Each trade should be one that is already, or may soon 
be, pursued conveniently in the neighborhood. 

3. Each trade should produce goods literally, — mer- 
chandise good for the welfare of mankind ; not debat- 
ably but confessedly good. 

4. Each trade, as far as possible, should be taught in its 
highest form as an applied science or an industrial art, and 
not merely as a wage-getting occupation. 

^ The use, in most of the cities of the country, of the four evening-school texts by 
Chancellor {Reading Lessons for Foreigners and Adult Beginners ; Studies in Eng- 
lish ; Arithmetic ; and American History] published in 1903 and 1904 shows that the 
field is open for the preparation of many books solely for such schools. 



Il8 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The slow introduction of the trades into our schools is 
not caused solely by the reluctance of the public to grant 
the money ; it is caused partly by the difficulties experi- 
enced in securing skilful teachers and good text-books. 

Among the crafts that may properly be taught in the day and evening 
schools are the following, viz. : — 

Leather working, — the making of boots, shoes, harness, trunks 

Iron and steel working 

Brass and copper working 

Construction of machinery (assembling parts) 

Furniture making 

Wheelwrighting and wagon-building 

Carriage making 

The making of pottery 

Tailoring 

Dressmaking 

Laundering 

The making of textiles, — silk, wool, flax, cotton 

Printing 

Shorthand and typewriting 

Bookkeeping and office business 

Cookery and confectionery 

Certain trades and wage-earning occupations cannot be 
taught in any schools ; and certain professions, and certain 
occupations now in the process of becoming professions, 
can be taught only in universities or schools of " higher 
education," Journalism is an instance of the last cited 
kind of profession-in-the-making ; salesmanship, of the first 
kind of trade. In respect to these matters, I assert an 
opinion that society organized as the School should be 
ready and active in teaching every trade and wage-earning 
occupation that makes for the welfare of mankind ; and I 
venture another opinion that such trades and occupations 
as cannot be properly taught in schools are predatory, are 
survivals of private war, and of other primitive social con- 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS II9 

ditions, and should and will be abolished in the process of 
perfecting human nature. 

The programmes of exercises for evening-school classes 
should, of course, vary with the age and attainments of the 
pupils ; but all of them, to be truly educational, should con- 
form to these principles, viz. : — 

1. The purpose of the first exercise of the evening 
should be to bring every member of the school fully into 
the atmosphere of education. This can be done only 
by establishing esprit du corps. The boy and the girl, 
the man and the woman, attending evening school, must 
be brought out of the worldly atmosphere that characterizes 
him or her and into the school atmosphere. The worldly 
atmosphere may be that of the street gang or of the sordid 
counting-room or the reeking mill or the vicious den : 
whatever it is, it can be removed only by displacement. 
As soon as the pupil enters the building, the school life 
must surround, environ, absorb, penetrate, and permeate 
him, as it certainly will, if it be true life. In displacing 
the other atmosphere with its voices and echoes, there is 
nothing so good as prompt musical, literary, and dramatic 
exercises. These should not be too long ; and they should 
be of a character suited to the special interests and con- 
cerns of the pupils.^ 

2. For evening-class programmes, the following are 
suggested as affording the most profitable use of the 
time : — 



1 In some neighborhoods and in some seasons (as at Christmas time in commercial cities) 
the pupils cannot all reach school at 7 or 7 : 30 o'clock. In such cases, I have found it best 
to devote the first half-hour, while the classes are assembling, to individual instruction and 
hard study under the guidance of the teacher ; and then to hold a fifteen-minute assembly. 
The last evening of the week, the programme may be varied by having a half or three- 
quarter-hour assembly with somewhat formal exercises, including occasionally an address 
by some successful man who is also a convincing public speaker. Gregariousness is a 
characteristic, and an essential one, of human nature. 



120 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 



7 : 30 to 7:45 School assembly with music 
7 :45 to 8:15 English 
8:15 to 8 : 30 Arithmetic 
8 : 30 to 9 : 30 Trade 



II 

7 : 30 to 7 : 40 Assembly 
7 : 40 to 8 : 00 Writing 

8 : 00 to 8:15 Spelling 
8:15 to 8 : 30 Reading 
8 : 30 to 9 : 30 Trade 

III 

7 : 30 to 7 : 40 Assembly 

7 : 40 to 7:55 American history 
7:55 to 8 : 20 Arithmetic 

8 : 20 to 9 : 00 Drawing 
9 : 00 to 9 : 30 Trade 

3. Where no trade can be taught, and not even manual 
training, the programme can include only the more 
familiar day subjects ; it should not, however, include more 
than four different studies for any one evening or indeed 
any one term. 

4. In the more advanced lines of workj the following 
programmes are suggested : — 

IV 

7:30 to 7:45 Assembly with music 
7 : 45 to 8 : 30 Mechanical drawing 
8 : 30 to 9 : 30 Chemistry in laboratory 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS I2I 



V 



7 : 30 to 7 : 45 Assembly 
7:45 to 8:15 General history 
8:15 to 8:45 Geometry 

8 : 45 to 9 : 30 Trade (or occupation) 

VI 

7 : 30 to 7 : 40 Assembly 

7 : 40 to 8 : 20 Spanish 

8 : 20 to 8:45 Commercial law 
8:45 to 9 : 30 Trade (or occupation) 

5. The correlation of the technical manual or trade work 
with the academic work of the evening school is an even 
more difficult problem than in the case of the day school, 
where it is indeed hard enough. This correlation is per- 
haps best effected by means of composition and of drawing 
— of composition by writing clear and accurate accounts 
of the various successive processes of the trade, and of 
drawing by plotting working sketches of the things done 
or to be done. But both these processes take time, and 
time is what the evening school cannot give. In the case of 
some pupils, — for instance, those whose day-work ends at 
four o'clock, — these explanatory compositions and sche- 
matic drawings can be done at home, but such conditions 
are few. The director of evening schools is consequently 
forced to choose between an attempt to correlate the work 
of the classroom with that of the shop by reducing the 
time for the actual handling of the tools and for the oper- 
ating of the processes, and no attempt at such correlation. 
In the former case, he lengthens the time that is required 
for the completion of the special technical course — which 
means that he reduces the percentage of persons able to 



122 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

Stay and to complete the course. In the latter case, he 
increases the number of persons to be graduated but 
reduces more or less the educational value of the course 
and even its special technical value, for within limits mere 
length of time is a psychological desideratum. 

It is a safe proposition that to permit any person to pur- 
sue one trade only with no other study or exercise evening 
after evening, year after year, is to delay even the mastery 
of the trade as well as to throw away an educational op- 
portunity. One who knows but one thing cannot fully 
know even that. That man prospers in life who has at 
least two wearing lines, — a vocation and an avocation; 
and he prospers best who has a vocatiojt, mi avocation, and 
a recreation. Similarly in the school, to see the materials 
by which one is to be educated, one must cross-view them 
by having at least two points of view.^ 

The special school next in importance for the remedy 
of the deficiency of the regular day school as the instru- 
ment of universal education is the school for the defective. 
The evening school exists because in this economic regime 
many youth "leave school" (meaning "day school") before 
they are educated. The school for defectives exists because 
Nature brings to birth, or the accidents and evils of life 
after birth make, a considerable number who cannot 
benefit from class work with normal children and whose 
presence in classes with such children is detrimental. 



1 The principle applies to the science of education and to the art of educating. There is a 
special science of education, very closely related to the science of genetic psychology ; and 
there is a special art of educating, unlike any other; but the science and the art, to be under- 
stood, must be viewed and criticised in the light of other sciences, — psychology, physiology, 
hygiene, logic, ethics, politics, economics, anthropology, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, 
— and of other arts and professions, — music, poetry, painting, oratory, law, medicine, 
theology, engineering, journalism, statesmanship. Those who do not see this, and confess 
or boast that they do not, are empirics, to whom are due some of the worst of the chronic mala- 
dies of human society. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 23 

We may divide the children of men into two classes, — 
the normal and the variant. These latter may be divided 
again into three groups, — the supernormal, the abnormal, 
and the subnormal.^ 

The abnormal include the defectives, — the deaf, the 
blind, the paralytic, — as well as the non-sane. 

We may test mankind by such psychophysiological tests 
as these : — 

a. Psychical rate 

b. Psychical field 

c. Retention of facts 

d. Retention of conclusions from facts 

e. Rate of acquiring a physical habit 

Were mankind to be judged by only the first of these 
tests, classification would be easy enough ; but there are 
many tests that confuse the issue. One who "thinks" fast, 
seldom carries many ideas : his field is small. Similarly, one 
who retains ideas strongly is usually slow to draw conclu- 
sions and apt to be forgetful of them. The observant are 
seldom reflective ; the retentive, seldom progressive. To 
be progressive is to discard old habits quickly by rapidly 
acquiring new ones.^ 

Consciously or unconsciously, all of us more or less fre- 
quently judge our fellows by these and related standards. 
This one we call " quick," that one " slow " ; this one 
"broad," that one "narrow"; this one "reliable," that 
one a "liar" or "promise-breaker"; this one "docile" or 
"teachable," that one "obstinate"; this one we say has 
"good judgment," that one "bad." We are "smart" 
or " dull," " thorough " or " superficial," " far-sighted " or 

^ Vide page 132, infra. 

' No habit can be discarded in any other way than by displacement when another habit is 
being acquired. 



124 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

the contrary, according to our superiority, mediocrity, 
or inferiority in relation to an average standard deter- 
mined by the individual critic in the light of his social 
knowledge.^ 

Practically, in large cities there are needed the follow- 
ing schools, viz. : — 

For the supernormal and the normal, a standard hierar- 
chical and progressive system from the kindergarten 
through the university and professional schools. The 
supernormal should not be advanced beyond their age, but 
be given more work of a quality suited to the age ; until 
twelve or fourteen years old, they need to be delayed by 
their average fellows, who in turn need them as incentives 
to effort. After adolescence has set in, most of this ma- 
jority of our youth should go to continuation trade high 
schools'^ and colleges instead of dropping down into "life," 
the unripe fruit of our badly nourished educational tree. 
The strongest should go forward to scientific and classical 
courses in professional schools of hterature, art, engineer- 
ing, agriculture, commerce, manufacture. 



' Every school needs an equipment for making definite tests; and every city needs a suffi- 
cient number of physiopsychologists to make these tests at proper intervals. When education 
has become a science, we shall determine the progress of a pupil in these qualities of power 
and of skill as well as in gzcanta of knowledge. 

' It is so radical a proposition that I hesitate to print it in large type ; we should have 
city agrictdtural higJi schools. Why? Because the best thing that we can do for the 
present welfare of our people and for the future of our stock is to encourage them to know 
Nature, to live out of doors, and to be natural. I would like to have all people live as many 
do in the Connecticut River valley : in villages with their farms perhaps miles away. Each 
family needs a home with a garden "close" and an orchard. If we must have cities for 
manufacture and for trading, let the cities be in no sense residence centres, but business and 
occupation centres only. (/4 Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values, Chapter XXII. 
" The Natural Man.") In developing once more the country as the human ideal, the agri- 
cultural high school will prove a powerful factor This is now the United States Govern- 
ment policy. Wisconsin, e.g., already has established county (country) agricultural high 
schools. But the city needs them more than does the country. The agricultural high school 
will interest the city youth more than the country youth, because it is different, and because 
it fills an ancient hunger of the soul, an ideal due to past ancestral lives. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 25 

For the subnormal and the abnormal there are needed 
the following schools, viz. : — 

Day Schools, — 

For incorrigibles, pending trial as to whether the incor- 
rigibility is transient or permanent. 

For truants and habitual absentees from school, pending 
trial. 

For the belated and backward, pending trial whether 
their deficiencies are due to remediable or accidental causes 
or are permanent and progressive relative to normal 
children. 

For deaf non-mutes. 

For cripples. 

For the blind. 

These schools should be conducted as independent 
classes, preferably not in or near buildings with normal 
children. 

Home Schools, — 

For the reform of incorrigibles, of chronic truants, and 
of chronic absentees. 

For deaf-mutes. 

For the blind and poor. 

For the crippled and poor. 

For pauper orphans. 

For the absolutely vicious. 

These home or parental schools should be not in the 
same but in separate buildings. In their courses, all such 
schools should be essentially industrial, and no child once 
committed to them should be released until able to earn a 
living by self-directed labor in a trade or recognized and 
reliable occupation. 



126 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

Our business as educators is at every possible point to 
cut off the supply of youth for bar-tending, gambling, pros- 
titution, and grand and petty criminality. 

Obviously, the limits of space available in this text do 
not permit a detailed discussion of the management of all 
of these schools, for each has its own purpose. There are, 
however, certain considerations too important to be omitted 
here. 

Admission to the special day schools should be upon the 
written recommendation of the teacher, and of the princi- 
pal, and by order of the superintendent for the district or 
division. A copy of the order of admission when the 
special school is outside the jurisdiction of the district 
superintendent should be filed in the office of the city or 
division superintendent. This should apply even when 
the ungraded, individual-help class is within the building 
of the principal recommending the transfer. 

There should be strict rules governing the length of 
stay in the class, which should never be less than the 
reform of the pupil as certified in writing by the teacher 
of the class. In cities large enough to have supervisors 
of classes for incorrigibles, truants, habitual absentees, and 
backward pupils, the transfer out of the class in the case 
of reform should be made with the advice and consent of 
such supervisor or supervisors. 

It is a proposition safe enough in the minds of the expe- 
rienced that the stay of pupils in the classes for the first 
three kinds of abnormality should never be less than two 
months even when reform is immediately manifested. A 
pupil who can be permanently reformed in less than this 
period needed transfer to another teacher, not a special 
regimen. 

But when upon being transferred to the day-school class 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 127 

the pupil grows steadily worse, as soon as this is reliably- 
ascertained, he should be committed to a parental or home 
school. 

In nearly all instances, the reformed pupil, when re- 
turned to the regular school work, should be assigned to 
a different teacher from the one from whose class he was 
originally sent to the ungraded school. This will usually ; 
be a matter of course, for he will have been in the special 
school long enough to advance beyond the grade from' 
which he was transferred. But in certain instances, it is 
best for him to go back to the class whence he came and 
to the teacher who asked for his removal. This is true 
when the following conditions concur : — 

1. The pupil desires to be so returned. 

2. The teacher is not only willing but glad to take him 
back.^ 

3. His associations in the class are not such as to 
induce in him the old spirit of transgression. 

4. There is no other regular class of the same or simi- 
lar grade to which he may not equally well be transferred. 

Obviously, such a concurrence of conditions will be 
unusual, perhaps not one case in ten, in large cities or in 
small. 

Another consideration applicable to all varieties of spe- 
cial day schools is that they must (not merely should) 
have the best possible teachers considered from every point 
of view ; that is, they must be broadly developed, thoroughly 
and regularly educated educators, and they must also be 
specially prepared for the field that their special school 

1 It is sometimes argued that it is best for the boy to be tried once more in the same 
environment. Common sense says, " A burnt child dreads the fire." Paul says, " Flee 
temptation." Jesus says, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." The 
argument is based upon ignorance of human nature and arises from the " teasing spirit," 
which is unworthy in professed educators. 



128 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

represents. More than this, they must have what we call 
" personalities " adapted to their peculiar tasks. A per- 
sonality that may serve admirably in a school for the 
physically defective is not apt to meet the different 
requirements of the manager of a class of incorrigibles. 

Unless these special day schools are well "manned" or 
"womanned," they may be worse than useless. Salaries 
should be high. Frequent relief for the teachers by visiting 
elsewhere or in plain rest and recreation should be custom- 
ary ; it serves also as an inducement for those to take such 
positions who otherwise are reluctant to do so. 

Another consideration is that, wherever possible, the 
classes should be so arranged that in one way or another 
two teachers share the responsibility and the work. A 
class of incorrigible pupils in a room isolated from all 
other schools and in the control of a single teacher may 
suffer a dangerous outbreak of disorder. It is too much 
of a strain to place upon one person.^ 

There is no doubt that special day classes are costly per 
capita. But they are less costly than reform schools and 
much less costly than jails and penitentiaries. That boys 
habitually absent from school or incorrigible in school are on 
their way to jail and to penitentiary is not to be questioned. 
These special day schools are also less costly than pauper- 
ism ; and that the neglected deaf-mute or crippled or blind 
boy or girl is on the way to becoming a public charge in 
almshouse or by outdoor relief is not to be questioned. ^ 

1 In a certain city, an incorrigible, ansemic boy, always irritable, suddenly became vio- 
lently insane in class. The predicament of the teacher and of the other boys was in this 
instance, as it were " providentially," relieved by the unwonted appearance of a policeman 
passing upon the street on his way home to dinner. As the attack was the beginning of 
chronic insanity with destructive mania, it is not pleasant to think of what might have hap- 
pened. With two teachers on hand, the situation would have been greatly mitigated. 

2 Not only the city of New York, but also the State of Wisconsin, is now moving nobly to 
the rescue of blind children through public education. So progressive are we now becoming. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 29 

The argument, however, cannot honorably be permitted 
to rest here. In this age in America, when the aver- 
age wealth per capita is ^1370, and the average annual 
income per capita is at least ;^I200, publicists, ethical 
teachers, legislators, and medical and other experts in 
human nature cannot evaluate fullness of life in terms 
of dollars and cents ; property and education in this age 
of the surplus are incommensurate with men and women.^ 
In ages and lands when taking property from the strong 
to save the weak meant damaging, if not ruining, the 
strong, whether or not to tax the well in order to save the 
sick, was at least a debatable question. But now the use 
of wealth to save the unwell is merely a question of dimin- 
ishing the luxuries, not the necessaries or even the com- 
forts of the few. Moreover, it means not quite that, but 
rather the investment of the surplus so as to diminish the 
number of the destroyers of labor-power and the parasites 
upon wealth. Paradoxical though it has always sounded, 
the experience of mankind proves that it pays richly to 
save the weak, to correct the wrong. A charitable society 
necessarily grows rich ; it produces no enemies of the gen- 
eral welfare; it is cooperative. Such charity does not 
pauperize but enriches its beneficiaries. 

The multi-millionnaire father who educates his sons, 
though at great expense, does not thereby pauperize either 
themselves or himself. A multi-billionnaire society that 
educates its youth thereby enriches itself. All the wealth 
of a nation is in its good citizens because the good citizens 
either add to the general wealth, or respect and protect 
it, or both. The costly citizens are the great criminals 

that only a spectator, free to look about, can keep in touch with all these forward movements. 
The work of Chicago for cripples is likewise notable. 
1 Vide Patten, New Basis of Civilization. 



130 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

who live outside the law and the small criminals who 
are ground beneath the law. A true national education, 
universally enforced, would permit no criminal to develop.^ 
By the same argument, which is not subtle but obvious, 
the parental schools are likewise justified. Wherever pos- 
sible, these, like the day schools, should be separated and 
set apart one from another. In large cities, there are re- 
quired home schools for at least these different kinds of 
abnormal children and youth : — 

1. The chronic incorrigibles, truants, and absentees. 

2. Deaf-mutes. 

3. Blind youth.2 

4. Idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, or otherwise neu- 
rotic. 

5. Orphan paupers. 

6. Crippled paupers. 

7. Deserted, cruelly treated, and seriously neglected 
children and youth. 

8. Criminal youth.^ 

' " Even so, it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little 
ones should perish." — Jesus, Gospel of Matthew, xviii, 14. 

" The Lord is not willing that any should perish." — 2 Epistle Peter, iii, 9. 

"Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all 
be fulfilled." — Jesus, Matthew, v, 18. 

2 In respect to certain of these classes, it is thought best in some States to send such 
youth to State or County institutions. This implies the establishment of schools outside of 
educational control. The desideratum is to bring all these institutions within the field of edu- 
cation. Stated otherwise, the ideal is so to enlarge the conception of education as a tnode 
of human progress atid of the school as a social institution that they will include all 
kinds of humanity. In consequence, unless the actual or proposed parental school of State 
or County is under the State or County board of education and State or County superintend- 
ent of instruction, who is a qualified expert, the logic of the argument requires favoring a 
city school under the city board and superintendent. There is another reason — these 
parental schools are best when small and near the homes of most of their inmates. While 
isolated, they should not be remote or inaccessible. Again, in general, County institutions are 
inferior to State snd City institutions; and in at least a fair majority of instances, it is easier 
for general public opinion and expert professional opinion to reform City than State institu- 
tions. Of course, these city institutions should always have grounds about them. 

3 All penal institutions should be reformatory , that is, educational. Not to pass upon 
the question whether or not certain crimes are evidences of a moral insanity so dangerous as 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 



131 



Humanity in civilization brings to birth children of at 
least six recognizably different types. These may be con- 
sidered as the following, viz. : — 



Supernormal but not abnormal. 

Both supernormal and abnormal. 

Normal. 

Abnormal but neither supernormal nor subnormal. 

Subnormal but not abnormal. 

Both subnormal and abnormal. 



To type I belong persons of so many and so generous talents as to 
constitute them full-orbed geniuses ; e.g. Vinci, Shakespeare, Franklin. 

To type 2 belong 
persons of special but 
surpassing talent: 
this is the group of 
men and women of 
" genius," used in a 
narrow sense ; e.g. 
Heine, Keats, Haw- 
thorne. 

To type 3 belong 
most of us. 

To type 4 belong 
the " obvious fail- 
ures," our " ne'er-do- 
weels." 

To type 5 belong 
the dull and the de- 
fective. 

To type 6 belong 
the true "perverts," 
the idiot and the imbecile. 

All criminals belong to types 2, 4, and 6. 

to make the extending of the hope of return to the world itself criminal, one may with entire 
safety say that most of the youth guilty of misdemeanors, crimes, and felonies require educa- 
tive treatment in the hope of release to the world upon cure and growth. Such educative 
treatment can best be afforded in small institutions that are in form prisons but in spirit and 
in process schools. 



1 SUPERNORMAL 


2 






4 






A 






B 






N 


3 


NORMA L 



R 
M 
A 
L 


5 


SUBNORMAL 


6 



132 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

These variations from the normal may be determined 
by the close observer who has had psychological training. 
The following points are to be noted, viz. : — 

1. The psychical rate. 

With some persons, images flow fast, with others very 
slowly. Even the standard normal vary as much as 
4 to I. 

2. The psychical field. 

Some persons carry several ideas at a time. They 
"consider" and consciously "judge." Others have but 
one or two ideas at a time. 

3. Observation. 

Some see much, others see something, the poorest see, 
hear, feel, very little. This is the question of sense- 
receptivity. 

4. Recollection. 

Some recall " facts " clearly and easily, others less well, 
the poorest scarcely at all. 

5. Memory. 

Some who cannot recall facts recall their conclusions. 
These are the irredeemable conservatives of human so- 
ciety. Some cannot recall either facts or conclusions. 
These are the double-minded, " driven with the wind and 
tossed." Others recall both facts and conclusions. These 
are the possible progressives. Still others recall only the 
facts, forgetting the conclusions. These are the redeem- 
able conservatives. 

6. Imagination and judgment. 

The power to recall facts and conclusions is only the 
foundation for the power to compose and constitute them 
into pictures and judgments. The normal can do this well. 
The supernormal do it so easily and so well that they seem 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 33 

to possess "intuitions," "genius," and other mysterious 
powers.^ 

We have, therefore, the normal and the variants. Of 
the latter, there are five types. Unfortunatel}'^, the plain 
subnormal, and the grotesque and often pitiable, subnormal- 
abnormal, are many times as numerous as the supernormal. 

Beside the home schools, society needs also the out-and- 
out reform or penal schools even for children. There 
come into the world souls aged, as it were, dissolute, un- 
regulated. Often, their bodies are prematurely old. The 
physiological explanation is not far to seek. Every cell 
of the human body is, of course, alive ; it has sensations, 
impulses, volitions, affections. We are congeries of mill- 
ions on millions of cells. Character is but these cells 
brought into relation by a compelling soul. Conscience is 
but a self-understanding correlation of all these motives, 
desires, emotions. The good man rules and reigns in the 
cosmic soul of his " world " ; the bad man flits about in 
chaos. To control tropisms, actions, reflexes, is to secure 
and to prolong life in this universe of the body. Personal 
identity and dignity : this is nothing but an integrating 
or unifying of so-called "physical" forces into so-called 
"spirit"; and spirit thus made self-conscious as soul. Yet 
some come into life incapable of organizing its elements, 
its instincts, habits, impulse into personality. 

To the reform school must go not a few children and 
youth who are thieves because incapable of comprehending 
the notion of property ; thugs and prostitutes because in- 
capable of comprehending the notion of human personality ; 
and other victims in any one or more of twenty other 

1 This entire problem as such belongs outside of the province of this book. Obviously, I 
have suggested only the entrance into this field. It has possibilities of immense educational 
value. For classification of the atypical, vide reports of Groszmann, School for Defectives, 
Plainfield, N.J. Also MacDonald, Experimental Study of Children. 



134 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

modes and stages of the incomplete evolution of the soul 
in man.^ 

Reform school management is, of course, an art in itself. 
Similarly, the management of schools for each kind of 
defectives constitutes a special art. All these special arts, 
however, are but component elements of the philosophy of 
education. What require emphasis at this point are the 
two propositions that fitness to manage regular schools and 
even entire school systems does not insure fitness to man- 
age any one of these special kinds of schools, and that for 
the management of or instruction in any of these special 
schools there is an absolutely necessary prerequisite in a 
thorough, extensive, and profound knowledge of the biology 
of man, which alone can interpret physical and psychical 
pathology.^ 

Administrators of State and City school systems know 
how exceedingly difficult it is to secure competent heads for 
any kind of special school, — ungraded, cripple, blind, 
deaf, reform, — and they know well the reasons. For the 
sake of the record, it may, however, be proper to note in 
passing what the reasons are. 

The first of these reasons is, of course, the unwillingness 
of the lords of economic society to consider the relation of 
all these human unfortunates to the welfare and progress 
of general society. 

The second reason is the inability of the dependent 
classes, whose intuitions in all these matters are correct, to 
force the lords to proper support of remedial and preventa- 
tive measures. 

* I have suggested in another work — A Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values — a 
few aspects of this immeasurably important principle. The conditions of American public 
opinion do not yet permit in popular writings any expositions of these themes of the animal 
in man. The presence of these conditions is sufficient warrant for the opinion that to attempt 
their discussion at this epoch is evidence of unfitness for popular teaching. 

* Bibliography, Appendi.x I, infra. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 35 

The third reason is the insufficiency of knowledge on 
the part of the professional classes regarding the social 
situation ; in consequence of their comparative ignorance, 
ministers, lawyers, educators, even most journalists and 
physicians, fail to see the significance of the presence of 
degenerates in the social mass. 

From these three reasons, these facts result, viz. : — 

1. There are so few of these special schools for defec- 
tives as to attract almost no attention from talented youth 
as an interesting mode of activity in years of maturity. 

2. The mode of life possible to workers in these institu- 
tions is so limited upon its material side in respect both to 
buildings, apparatus, and equipment, and to "compensa- 
tion " for services as almost to forbid voluntary entrance. 
Most managers and teachers have literally been drafted 
into the work by hunger and cold. 

3. The work appears as yet in the notion of the general 
public to be purely charitable, whereas it is capable of being 
made largely, if not mainly, educational. 

There are, however, a few general principles that may 
safely be laid down for the guidance of organizers and 
administrators of reform and other schools for the probable 
failures in life. 

Of these, the first principle is that the buildings for the 
school should all be upon the "cottage plan." This means 
that the dormitories should house each but a score of boys 
(or of girls); that even the schoolhouses should each be 
small, however numerous the inmates of the school ; that 
the barns and stables and workshops should be small and 
many, rather than large and few. 

The second principle is that the school must be in a 
park, not upon a mere building plot. It must have gar- 
dens, walks, woods, fields, streams, and playgrounds. It 



136 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

must appeal to our fundamental human nature, to the 
hereditary ancestral man. ^ 

The third principle is that the school must be controlled 
and in the main taught by parents, preferably by those 
parents who themselves have had wayward or deformed 
or otherwise atypical children. Compassion is the essence 
of good special school teaching. 

The fourth principle is that the work must be primarily 
physical and essentially physiological. The manager and 
head assistants should be graduated physicians as well as 
thoroughly taught educators. 

Closely associated with this topic is another special topic 
that also requires for its proper treatment a volume by it- 
self. I refer to the juvenile court. The purposes of this 
court are several. 

Of these purposes, the first is to save youth from reform 
schools and penal institutions, if possible, while at the same 
time giving them both a severe warning and a definite les- 
son in the power of society organized as government. 
The essence, therefore, of juvenile court reproof is proba- 
tion with a sanction ; that is, excuse from the legally appro- 
priate penalty, provided there are the fruits of works meet 
for repentance. 

The second purpose is the correlation of court, school, 
and home : of the law, of education, and of family 
discipline. 

Obviously, the juvenile court is very closely related to 
the enforcement of the compulsory education laws. We 

1 Behind this principle, which should be a mere commonplace for the education of each 
and every child of man, is not only philosophy, but also strictly scientific truth. Said Rous- 
seau in the Entile, — " In the first movement of the mind, let the senses always be the guides; 
let there be no books but the world and no other instruction but facts." This literary opinion 
was the beginning of all the constructive work in education from Kant and Pestalozzi to Hall, 
Dewey, and Baldwin. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 37 

open up here the bitter questions of poverty, of ignorance, 
and of family isolation. 

I cannot pass this topic without a reference to the attend- 
ance or "truant" officers. The latter name is unfortu- 
nately the more common. These officers should be, not 
policemen, never punishers, but always the almoners of 
education. Preferably, most of them should be women, and 
always they should be parents.^ 

The question of the mode of appointment, term of office, 
salary, and other features of the tenure of juvenile court 
judges would lead us too far afield, were it to be answered 
here fully; but so much as this is certain. A juvenile 
court judge should be as good a jurist as sits on the bench ; 
he is dealing with lives. He should be a mature man who 
knows the world ; and he must be a keen critic of human 
nature. He must be both religious and a reformer. As 
such, he can play a large and a blessed part in the modern 
city. Such a man will know how to select proper proba- 
tion officers and how to advise the superintendent of 
schools in the proper selection of attendance officers. 

The attendance officers must be part and parcel of the 
educational work of the school system. In salary, they 
should receive as much as the principals of small elemen- 
tary schools. And they should be selected upon strict] 
civil service reform principles, by examination as to quali-' 
fications and investigation of previous record. , 

Of other special schools, the summer schools, so called, 
are perhaps the most important. These are of two distinct 
kinds, — the schools or institutes for teachers and appren- 
tices, and the schools for pupils who otherwise would be 



1 The attendance officers of the District of Columbia are all of them married women. 
Their efficiency and their sympathy have both sprung largely from their own life 
experiences. 



138 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

upon the streets. The first kind of school is of so much 
significance in the professional development of city school 
systems as to warrant longer treatment.^ The second kind 
is a temporary makeshift in the North, pending a proper 
and complete organization of the school year.^ In certain 
southern regions of our country, the heat is such as to 
preclude the holding of summer day-school sessions. 

Of the makeshift summer schools, there are three types. 
Of these, the first is that of the morning session devoted 
mainly to Nature-study and to manual training. As for 
reading, writing, and arithmetic, these and other so-called 
"essentials" are scarcely considered. In the afternoon, the 
children roam the streets. This morning day school is 
usually interesting at first; but as the weeks go by the 
attendance dwindles. Part of the cause lies in the fact 
that the teachers are either young and unskilful, working 
for the " pay," ^ or old and tired, working out of habit or 
a sense of duty or mere will-lessness to do anything else. 

The second type of modern summer school for children 
is the play school. This often has two sessions, with some- 
times one set, more frequently two sets, of children in 
attendance. In the play or playground summer session, 
the children are taught games and gymnastics, stories, 
play-acting, perhaps wood-working and sewing. The 
teachers are necessarily more or less speciaUsts; they 
are at least specialists in posse. 

Sometimes these two types of school are combined. 

The third type of present-day summer school conforms 
more or less closely to the regular winter school. Per- 
haps home nursing, cookery, sewing, and bench work are 

1 Page 192, infra, shows relation of subjects to professionalization of teaching. 

2 Page 366, Our Schools. 

' The salary of a summer school teacher is usually about half that of the teacher who is 
on the winter (or regular) roll. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 1 39 

especially emphasized; but all or nearly all the regular 
studies may be carried on. 

It is noteworthy that nowhere as yet are there either 
summer day high schools or summer evening schools. 
These lie in the future, in the course of the development 
of the universal school. 

Similarly evening lectures for adults lie in the course of 
the development of the universal school ; but there is to 
be' remembered this important difference. For evening 
lectures, there will always be a demand, which will sustain 
them much as they are now, even when the universal school 
is doing its systematic work, day and night, winter and 
summer, for all inquiring minds with the requisite leisure. 

In some cities, at the present time, there are given annu- 
ally hundreds, even thousands, of lectures in more or less 
systematic courses. So far has this development now gone 
in New York city as to suggest the faint outlines of the 
future universal school. But in certain other large cities, 
as yet not one lecture is given annually for the benefit of 
the public and at the public expense in connection with 
the public school. 

It is not a phase of the purpose of this book to present 
substantive social or even educational arguments for any 
proposition. But there is no proposition for which an argu- 
ment may be more properly or more convincingly made 
than this that a representative democracy requires as broadly 
diffused knowledge as it can possibly secure. There is no 
better medium for the diffusion of knowledge than the 
evening lecture. 

If it be asked, upon what subjects shall evening lectures 
be given, the reply is very simple, upon knowledge that is 
both useful and desired. Knowledge is like wealth in be- 
ing limited in amount, difficult to get, and desirable. To 



140 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

destroy poverty, diffuse wealth. To destroy ignorance, 
the mother-culture t)f poverty, diffuse knowledge. 

I am quite well aware that this general principle does 
not answer the question in definite detail. But prescrip- 
tion of detail as to educational content lies outside the 
province of this work ; given a competent supervision of 
evening lectures, and the proper course of action proceeds 
automatically. 

Hitherto, in American public education, far too much 
attention has been paid to measures and to methods, 
and far too little to the men who are to initiate and 
to accomplish them. A few general principles may be 
suggested. 

The proper officer in a considerable city school system 
to inaugurate or to expand free evening lectures is the 
first desideratum. All of at least one man's time is re- 
quired for the work of securing lecturers, janitors, lantern 
operators and supplies, and in spreading by newspaper 
notices, handbills, posters, and pamphlets, the news, not 
merely of the existence of the system, but of the early com- 
ing of each special attraction. Though the lectures are 
given in the evening, this man will need to work all day. As 
the enterprise grows in value and in public favor, he will 
soon need a bureau of clerks and stenographers to assist 
him and also ample office room. Ultimately, the director 
of evening lectures will become one of the regular associate 
or assistant superintendents of the general superintendent 
of the school system, 

A second principle is that as rapidly as possible the indi- 
vidual lecture will be displaced by the series of six or eight 
lectures upon one general subject; and the short series 
will give way to the complete course of twenty-five to thirty 
lectures, supplemented by personal home study. In other 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 141 

words, each evening lecture course will become properly a 
part of a genuine popular evening university. 

A third principle is that, as rapidly as possible, the 
ephemerally or superficially attractive will give way to 
the permanently valuable. This, however, should not be 
attempted too soon. 

An obvious principle is that the lectures shall be widely 
distributed through the city. Of this principle, the corol- 
lary must not be forgotten : where the needs ^ and interest 
are greatest, there the most lectures should be given. 

In general, the purpose of evening lectures is to educate 
the public, — to revive in depressed souls the hunger and 
thirst after knowledge that lifts man above the animal. 

In the development of American cities, there has been 
but little foresight manifested, though much boasting 
thereof. As an example of entire blindness to future 
needs, the situation of the schoolhouse is significant. 
Every child at school needs at least a desk space of twenty 
square feet and a playing place outdoors of thirty square 
feet. But not only are the schoolrooms and the schoolhouses 
too small, but the playgrounds are almost non-existent.^ 

Many American cities are laid out in blocks of 200' x 
400', more or less. Such a block, of about two acres, serves 
very well for the accommodation of a school for a thousand 
children. But no provision for reserving these blocks for 
school purposes has ever been generally made by the self- 
laudatory city fathers. As for establishing double blocks 

1 Needs usually exist in the absence of interest. In a certain city, the public lectures were 
poorly attended until a wealthy and prominent citizen took them under his patronage, riding 
to and from the hall in a splendid new automobile. This set the fashion. 

2 In a certain large city, there are two schoolhouses each accommodating seven hundred 
children. The playgrounds for each of these schools are 23' x 29' and 22' x 31' respectively : 
and both sexes play in each yard. Of course, neither yard is large enough for the boys or girls 
alone of even one class. The children actually play on the streets ; in each instance, the 
streets upon which these schoolhouses abut are main business thoroughfares. 



142 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

of 400' X 400' to provide building space and grounds for 
two thousand children, none of these foresighted men has 
ever dreamed of this ; at least, not " out loud." 

So disheartening is the pHght of humanity in cities as 
fully to warrant the suggestion of their entire abandon- 
ment to industry and commerce and the establishment of 
true hamlets^ in their neighborhoods, that we may save 
the physical and spiritual lives of our youth. Hitherto, the 
city has ultimately destroyed every nation. Hitherto, it 
has been an insoluble problem. 

In the degree in which we can build up country-like 
suburbs and preserve them as such, we can work for the 
schoolhouse with ample grounds. 

For the present, the problem of the great city school 
edifice is how to provide basement playrooms and roof 
gardens. Here the subject encroaches upon that of 
schoolhouse architecture, which, like so many other themes, 
lies outside the immediate province of this book. 

We should be ready, let us agree in passing, to accept 
certain general principles. The great schoolhouse with 
no grounds is essentially undesirable. Its worth is rel- 
ative, not absolute. The proper tendency is toward 
many comparatively small school buildings, of (say) 
twenty to thirty rooms, located in parks. The norm for 
a school does not much exceed five or six hundred chil- 
dren, with at least a full acre of space for their outdoor 
plays and games. 

The location and use of the ungraded individual-help 
class or classes in the school system vary in different com- 
munities so widely and so substantially as to create the 
appearance of the absence of all principle in their consti- 

* Vide A Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values, page 462. Hamlet means literally 
"home abode"; the "let" reinforces the "ham." The ideal of the Teuton is the castle; 
of the Slav and Celt, the village. Vide note, page 109. 



SPECIAL SCHOOLS 143 

tution and function. The large city school of (say) one 
hundred classes with four thousand children, mostly foreign- 
born and representing a dozen different nationalities, races, 
languages, and religions, may find it advantageous to have 
four or five such classes. This is especially probable at a 
time when new and more drastic compulsory attendance 
laws are being enforced. In some of these classes belong 
boys and girls who are incorrigible or habitual truants. 
These should be segregated by grades, — e.g. self-help 
Class A for pupils in Grades III-IV ; and B for Grades V 
and VI. Another kind of class or of classes should be 
formed for belated pupils, deficients in studies, and occa- 
sional absentees, trying to make up lost work. In the 
large city school, there may also be a need for a class of 
defectives, — the partly blind, the partly deaf, the invalids, 
the somewhat imbecile. Every large city, of course, needs 
special schools for hopeless incorrigibles, wayward boys 
and girls, the bhnd, the deaf and dumb, and the true 
imbeciles and idiots. With the recent substantial progress 
of educators in physiological knowledge and in psycho- 
logical acumen, there are being saved from incarceration 
in reform schools, in asylums for the feeble-minded, and 
in similar institutions many pupils who would otherwise 
be doomed to isolation from the stimulating rivalry of 
the competent. 

In a special class, there should never be over eighteen or 
twenty pupils, and twelve should be the desired average. 
The entire purpose in putting the pupils in a special class 
is to make them fit to leave it as soon as possible. Too 
early discharge is, however, undesirable. In my own ex- 
perience, I have found that unless improvement sets in 
within a month and unless the minimum standard of effi- 
ciency has been attained within three months, the pupil 



144 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

for his own good should be sent to a special school where 
he may be taken charge of day and night. Seven in 
ten display improvement within a fortnight and can be 
safely remanded to a regular class within ten or twelve 
weeks. This hope must be kept as bright as possible in 
the soul of every special pupil. 

The argument so often heard, especially from the lips of interested 
parents, that classification of children into superior, average, dull, imbe- 
cile, idiot, incorrigible, wayward, etc., is "undemocratic," involves 
several postulates, i. That democracy for children as well as for 
adults means equality. 2. That democracy is a denial of the special 
rights of the weak. 3. That democracy is a denial of the special obli- 
gations of the strong. 4. That democracy is a mere ideology and not 
a scientific system, — a practical working philosophy of facts and 
demonstrated principles. True democracy means fitting each man for 
the best service of which he is capable and locating him where he can 
perform this service. Lowell, Whitman, Eliot, and Butler are the relia- 
ble exponents of this doctrine. 

Democracy is solely an affirmation of the locus of power. As such, 
it affirms that power rises up out of and is vested in the people. De- 
mocracy is the opposite of monarchy in that it collects power in the 
whole people while monarchy collects power in one person. Democracy 
is the opposite of feudalism in that the latter divides and distributes 
power into hierarchic fiefs or feuds. It is the opposite of oligarchy, of 
aristocracy, and of autocracy for other equally obvious reasons. But 
true democracy is not blind to the values of the one or of the best or of 
the few or even of the fief. Upon the final and complete sovereignty 
of all, democracy is building a humanity equally regardful of the uses 
of the naturally strong and of the needs of the weak. Because privilege 
confuses this issue, democracy is for equal opportunity and against all 
privilege. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 

It is the day's work that counts. No other period of 
time is so calculable, so controllable, so patent, and so de- \ 
terminative. It is true that, though we own no instant of 
time, we can in a measure direct our life in the moment 
that impends. In this aspect, our direction is over, not the 
present (the presented time), and certainly not over the 
future as a whole or even in considerable part, but it is 
over the next few seconds ahead. Extraordinary and sud- 
den as the necessities of life are, it still happens that 
neither death nor disease nor accident nor other calamity 
scarcely ever comes so suddenly, so finally, that we cannot 
do or receive in the next two or three seconds of time what 
in the circumstances we choose. In these two or three 
seconds, the will of man operates. 

But in respect to this immediate future, we must regu- 
larly choose times to rest, to sleep, to eat, to clothe our- 
selves, to play, to bathe, to care for ourselves so as to keep 
alive. We surrender parts of our day that the rest of the day 
may be secure. I make this argument upon the premise that 
we prefer to belong to that kind of persons by whom and 
from whom things happen and not to that other kind to ' 
whom and for whom they happen. The affirmative actors 
in the drama of the world have a different philosophy of 
conduct from the spectators in the audience and from the 
ticket sellers in the lobby.^ Such persons tally their lives 

1 Nietzsche thought that he saw in the world two kinds and classes of persons, the lords 
with their principles of aristocracy, and the menials with their " neighbor religion." I would 



146 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

at the end of each day. They cannot proceed without a 
plan from waking to sleeping, for theirs are lives of 
self-determination. 

The will of the self-determined man is quick to change 
in the presence of emergent need, for precisely the reason 
that it is not obstinate but rational. Such a man is not 
willful but mindful, — a person of intelligence and of sym- 
pathy as well as of motivation. 

The setting up of a programme for the day's work with 
the following of it reasonably is not fettering but freeing 
one's self. As the road rails do not limit, but rather for- 
ward the adventure of the locomotive steam engine, so the 
forehanded provision of a daily programme gives track- 
age for the progressive teacher. In this world of time, of 
space, and of cause, things are seldom what they seem; 
and what looks like the letter of prescription is often the 
letter of emancipation.^ 

The same argument holds for records. One may have 
a memory " never so good " ; the keeping of records will 
not weaken it, but rather release its energies for yet other 
accumulations. The mere making of the record is a disci- 
pline in selection and in discrimination. Moreover, the 
record itself is a bulwark of freedom in the day of conflict 
with the unsupported recollections of others. 

Men literally write themselves up or down in the pages 

discriminate a third class of the servile who are the executives of the wills, now of nobles, 
now of the masses; these are the true helots : who resist orders even less than manual laborers 
and domestic menials. We know them by their professed ethics. The lords believe in the 
primacy of will, in the nobility of struggle, whether it cost fortune, health, reputation, or life 
itself. The laborers believe in the primacy of affection, in the humanity of mutual love and 
help and, if need be, in self-sacrifice for others. The servile believe in the primacy of intellect 
or " good judgment," in the propriety of self-preservation. Honor is the virtue of aristocrats ; 
kindness, that of the workers ; tact, that of the servile. Cf. note, page 355, Our Schools. 

1 Not infrequently has it happened in history that whom the lords of the world must other- 
wise emancipate honorably they have violently proscribed. There are certain indications 
that education is to go free from government (or politics) in the latter manner. Cf. Aristotle, 
Politics, with Froebel, Education of Man, as to political homoeopathy v. allopathy. 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS I47 

of history. Their records are revelations of their true 
selves. In civilization, as we grow closer together physi- 
cally from mere accumulation of numbers, we grow more 
and more apart from one another psychically from mere 
multiplication of events. The increasing varieties of ex- 
perience tend to separate us ever more and more in opin- 
ion, because we differ more and more in the facts before 
and around us. There are two means for bringing men 
together, — the event and the record. In the record as in 
the work, it is the day that counts. The only record of 
value is contemporaneous with the event. The ideal is to 
clean tip the work of each day as we live it ; to file its 
record; and to attack the new day with as few old scores 
as possible. 

It is true that as one grows older, time shortens. A 
year at fifty is scarcely as long in retrospect or in pros- 
pect as a month at twenty or a day at five. As one grows 
older, the acts enlarge ; and fewer can be performed in 
the day. In consequence, our duty is to plan each day 
ever more and more carefully. 

To the school child, the school day is by no means the 
same thing as it is to the school-teacher ; and their recol- 
lections of it will always be widely different But what the 
school day is to be to the child is within the control of the 
teacher in almost the same degree as what it is to be to 
the teacher himself. To the school child, the day is to be 
full of so many events that he is likely to see neither its 
ineaning as a whole nor the import of its chief events. 
To the school-teacher, the day is likely to pass unidenti- 
fied in a series of routine activities. 

For two complementary reasons, as related to himself 
and to the pupil, the teacher needs to plan the day : for 
his own sake, that he may take interest in it, economize 



148 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

his efforts, give the day distinction, and have it a pleasant 
memory ; for the sake of the child, that the day may 
have form, purpose, definiteness, and value.^ 

By the daily programme we may mean two different 
things : the ordinary routine, and the special plan of topics 
for the particular day. This may be illustrated in fifth- 
year (Grade IV) work by two schemes, viz. : — 



General Daily Programme 


9-9:15 


Morning exercises in room 


9:15-9:50 


Arithmetic 


9: 50-10: 10 


Spelling 


10: 10-10:30 


Writing 


10:30-10:45 


Recess 


10:45-11 : 15 


Language 


II : 15-II : 25 


Physical culture 


II : 25-12 


Geography 


I : 15-2 


Drawing 


2-2: 15 


Music 


2:15-2:45 


Reading 


2:45-3:15 


History 



Special Daily Program, October 15. 
9-9 : 1 5 Read First Psalm. 

Sing Nearer, my God, to Thee. 
Read Excelsior. 
Talk about Keeping Protnises. 
Sing Flag of the Free. 

Call for memory gems, — those now on blackboard to be 
covered. 
9:15-9:50 Problems in cancellation, — to be placed on black- 
board. 
12x3x7x4 ^ p 
6 X 9 X 21 
(2) iix3ix6^x9»fX8A=? 

Assign four problems, page 67, in text-book. 

* Vide Burk, " The Withered Heart of the Schools," Educational Review, November, 



(0 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 149 

Explain difficulties in each problem. 

Collect written work. 

Speak to A. B. about fractions. 

Remind C. D. about correct copying. 

Notice whether X. Y. does not need glasses. 
9 : 50-10 : 10 Give these twelve new words : — 
among, wilderness, etc. 

Practise these words : — 
separate, thought, wholesome?- 
10 : 10-10 : 30 Practise capital L and the word many. 

Write on blackboard for imitation : — 
Luther Long lived many years. 

Discriminate 7n, n, and ti : write luminous. 
10 : 30-10 : 45 Recess.^ — 

10:45-11 : 15 Teach the direct uses of like and as, as illustrated in 
the following sentences : 
John is like his brother George. 
Like a bird, the arrow flew 
Swift from the bow of bending yew. 
This is as good as that. 
As one man, they worked together. 
As a bird flies, so flew the arrow. 

Refer to the dictionary. 

Read quotation from Heath Reader, page 49. 

Teach first two stanzas, Psalm of Life. 

Refer to Excelsior by same poet. 

Tell about Longfellow. 
11:15-11:25 Repeat old exercises, add new exercise, p. 137 of 
Manual. 

Change positions of desks of E. F. and Q. R. 
11:25-12 Review points of compass from classroom. Imagine 

ourselves at City Hall, and find points of compass 
there. Draw compass on blackboard, including N.E., 
S.E., S.W., and N.W. Read map in text-book, 
page 7. Teach decorative compass. Show how to 
find Pole Star by the pointers in Great Dipper. Tell 

1 When all but one or two pupils in a class know a word, do not require all the class to 
study it, but omit it from any future list. 

2 Ask head of department to visit language class. 



150 OUR CITY SCHOOLS ' 

story of Orion and Great Bear. Read supplementary 
book on stars, p. 36. Give children ten minutes to 
write a paragraph on what the pocket compass would 
tell me to do when trying to find my way home from 
North Woods (outside of the city). 

1 : 15-2 Take plenty of oak leaves, green, green yellow, and 

yellow, and give water-color lesson. Make black- 
board sketch of leaf form and lines. 

2-2 : 15 Sing scale of G major in half and whole notes. Learn by 

rote song, page 18 in music text. Sing the song in 
G major. Ask children to explain meaning of words 
and effect of the melody upon themselves. 

2:15-2:45 Read selection, page 180, in Robert's Fourth Reader, 
dividing class into three groups, A to tell the story, B 
to read, and C to criticise and to give improvements.^ 

2:45-3:15 The story of Saladin and some account of the Sara- 
cens. [Here follows a paragraph of two hundred 
words to be placed on the blackboard.] Read in 
class pp. 190-192, Supplementary Reader. Locate the 
time in the perspective of history and the places upon 
a globe or a map. 

The good principal will direct his teachers in making the 
general programme but will only suggest to them what the 
special programmes should be. Files of such programmes 
are helpful as records for several purposes : — 

1. To show parents and other visitors and inquirers 
what the particular class has been doing absolutely, and 
also relatively as compared with other classes. 

2. To assist the teacher in improving her own methods 
and devices, from term to term, when she remains in the 
same grade. 

3. To afford suggestions from the past for the present. 
To make memoranda for the programme of the next day, 

1 This is set forth as current practice. It may be true that all class exercises in reading 
should be given up, to be replaced by individual elocution lessons, by recitations of long 
selections, by oral conversations as to plot and character, and by written compositions based 
on silent reading. 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 151 

either by remaining after school for half an hour in the after- 
noon or by coming to school half an hour earlier in the 
morning or by working half an hour in the evening, may 
seem to take time.^ This may be the case at the moment ; 
but it reduces the strain of the actual daily management 
and instruction and, therefore, tends to economize and to 
lengthen life. Of course, when the purpose of teaching 
is to keep school, to earn some money, and to bridge over 
a period preceding matrimony or preparation for " a pro- 
fession" or opportunity to enter business, then we can 
hardly expect any time to be spent out of school making 
plans or records. These objects are based upon postulates 
not accepted by educators who believe that good teaching 
is not a bar to happy marriage, that every parent should 
know how to teach his own children skilfully, that teaching 
should be educating, that educating is an art, that the art 
of teaching is a profession requiring quite as much skill and 
learning as law or medicine or theology or engineering, and 
that good teaching is the busiest business known to m,en, but 
that " business " should not be synonymous with "money- 
getting business." 

Another form of programme is the month or term plan 
book, which gives the provisions of the various courses of 
study. In such a book, the work is usually planned in 
consecutive detail with freedom for the teacher to choose 
how much to select for the lessons from day to day. 

We are here confronted by the question whether courses 
of study for city schools shall be by grades or by subjects ; 
that is, in special monographs, including all subjects for 
particular grades, or in monographs presenting particular 

1 The lawyer spends much more time in preparing his case than he does in arguing it in 
court. Similarly, the successful preacher prepares his sermon with care and study. We are 
learning that the best physicians look up the records and successful therapy of all similar 
cases. The learned professions keep up and increase their learning. 



152 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

subjects for all grades. Though apparently a mechanical 
question, this is in substance philosophical and psychologi- 
cal. Apparently, it is merely a question as to whether we 
shall cut up the entire educational curriculum crosswise or 
lengthwise, horizontally or vertically. Really, the question 
is whether the logic of the subject studied or the psychol- 
ogy of the subject studying, whether philosophy or human 
nature, shall prevail. Practically, the answer depends 
upon the pupils for whom the question is being asked. 
To older pupils, the intellectual continuum, the progress in 
the subject, is of the greater importance ; while to younger 
pupils the correlation of the thought of the day, the intel- 
lectual sociiim, is the more important. This solution is 
correct both in psychology and in philosophy : in psy- 
chology, because the mind of the child is full of centripetal, 
centrifugal, tangential, parabolic, often chaotic, form- 
seeking and form-losing ideas that need to be organized, 
correlated, defined, suppressed, and emphasized, while the 
mind of the youth needs to be developed, forwarded, sys- 
tematized, and in a measure specialized; and in philosophy, 
because childhood must acquire those masses of ideas and 
must exercise those motives, which youth uses as reser- 
voirs of fact and of energy and by which youth is enabled 
to irrigate the waste places of life and of the soul. 

That school system is fortunate which has its courses pub- 
lished both by grades and by subjects ; ^ this is especially 
helpful in the middle grades, V to VIII or IX. When we 
cannot have both, the horizontal plan is preferable in the 
kindergarten and in Grades I to IV; and the vertical there- 
after, especially in high school and college. But even in 
the college and the university, the so-called conspectus of 
all the work offered in a given year often seems almost 

1 With complete syllabi and numerous references. 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 1 53 

as valuable as the syllabus for all the work in a depart- 
ment or course. 

What records a principal, a head of a department, a 
supervisor, a director, and a teacher should keep is a ques- 
tion that the individual is seldom permitted to answer ; it is 
answered for him by some higher authority and in two ways : 
affirmatively, by prescribing particular records ; and nega- 
tively, by failing to provide the funds for making them, — 
clerical service, paper, and printing. The higher authori- 
ties that make these prescriptions seldom prepare them to 
meet educational requirements. 

The most common record is that of registration, enrol- 
ment, presence, absence, tardiness, transfer, dismissal.^ 

It is usually made in a blank book to be filed, when 
filed at all, at some other place with some higher authority. 
Its customary purpose is to serve as the basis for the 
apportionment of State funds. 

When kept at the school, in card catalogues conven- 
iently filed in free-moving indexed drawers, such items 
from day to day may be useful educationally. As records 
of school history, they are of no great value. 

Almost as common is the record of scholarship, that is, 
averages derived from daily recitations, written tests, and 
final examinations ; days' attendance ; and conduct. This 
record is sent in duplicate to parents and is supposed to 
inform them how their particular child stands at some 
particular time. 

A strange superstition prevails regarding these marks 
for studies, for exercises, and for conduct; very sensible 
men and women, parents as well as teachers, interested 

1 What shall be added to these depends upon the jurisdiction. House address seems 
desirable. Most persons insist upon vaccination. Notes as to conduct, physical defects, 
and grade at school are frequently added. Vide Perry, Management of a City School, 
Chapter VHI, a valuable discussion of principles. 



154 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

citizens as well as school authorities, seem to see in the 
marks 70 or 90, F or E, C or B +, or in the words " poor " 
or " very good," etc., demonstrable truths. And yet as 
soon as teachers and parents come together to discuss 
the actual standing of individual children, the teachers 
find that, in order to be understood, they must translate 
whatever set of marks they have given the children into 
some other set. 

To illustrate, Walter Hosmer, first year in high school, 
has this report : — 

English, C Physical training, A 

Algebra, A Drawing, A 

German, D Music, D 

Physical geography, B Current events, A 

English history, C Rhetoricals, B 
Manual training, B 

Upon inquiry, his parents learn that A is excellent, B is 
good, C is fair, that is, it " passes the boy," and D is 
poor, and does not " pass " him. In other words, the 
marks are valueless until translated. Walter's parents 
go home to think the matter over. The longer they 
consider it, the less they understand the translation. They 
return, and they learn this in addition. — A means that 
the boy is among the best in the class, does at least 
90 per cent of all the work that the best pupil, " a per- 
fect scholar," might be expected to do, B means be- 
tween 80 and 90 per cent, C means between 70 and 80 
per cent, and D means less than 70 per cent, which is the 
amount required to pass. This additional " intelligence " 
helps a little. Walter, however, is in a confidential mood 
and renews their confusion by an assertion that some 
teachers are " easy markers " and others are " hard 
markers," and that anybody can get C in English History 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 



155 



and no one over C in German. With this deliverance, all 
parental confidence in marks collapses, as it should. 

An arraignment of marks as not dependable may in- 
clude the following points, viz. : — 

1. The personal equation of the teacher in respect to 
at least two important particulars : {a) His own scholar- 
ship, {b) His sympathy with and insight into the charac- 
ters of children and youth. 

(a) A fine and exact scholar is apt to be a hard marker, 
because his standards are high, {b) A sympathetic teacher 
is apt to mark industry and motive rather than attainment. 

2. At best, the amount of material to be covered is 
always a subjective criterion known only to the teacher.^ 

3. The subjects themselves are not evaluated. To re- 
turn to the illustration and to improve it as follows, viz. : — 



Subjects 


Recita- 
tions per 
week 


Counts 
per term 


Letter 
mark 


Word 
mark 


Per cent 
mark 




Remarks 


English 


4 


4 


c 


Fair 


75 


52 


Rhetoric text: read- 
ing: composition 


Algebra 


S 


5 


A 


Excellent 


95 




Ekjuations of two un- 
known quantities 


German 


3 


3 


D 


Poor 


25 


It 


Beginning grammar: 
conversation 


Phys.Geog. 


2 


2 


B 


Good 


85 




Field-work : text-book 


Eng. Hist. 


3 


4 


C 


Fair 


70 


CU 


To Henry VHI 


Man. Tr. 


2 


2 


B 


Good 


88 


oi 


Forging of iron 


Phys. Tr. 


2 


I 


A 


Excellent 


95 


a! 


Gymnasium and class 
exercise 


Drawing 


I 


I 


A 


Excellent 


90 


0,-+: 



Mechanical designs in 
iron 


Music 


I 


i 


D 


Poor 


SO 


c 


Three-part chorus 


Cur. Ev. 


I per 
term 


I 


A 


Excellent 


98 


„ 
■5 2 


Discussion of" trusts " 


Rhetoric 


I per 
term 


i 


B 


Good 


80 




Declamation, "Hora- 
tius " 



1 In Arithmetic, 75 per cent, or fair, means one thing to one Grade VI teacher and another 
to the next, while it means one thing to the Grade VI teacher as such and a very different 
thing to that same teacher as a citizen of the world. These two variations tend to vitiate all 
marking, 



156 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

These facts now appear, viz.: — 

{a) Until letters and words are reduced to per cents, it 
is not possible to find the average. * 

{d) Finding the average by per cents, when counting 
English and Physical Training equal, is contrary to sound 
opinion. The frequent remedy, not to count the minor 
subjects at all, results in neglect of those subjects in favor 
of such as are marked. Counted as equal, the average is 
yy.6 per cent. Counted as evaluated in the second column, 
the average is 74.3 per cent. If the pupil had obtained 95 
per cent in his English instead of 75 per cent, his average 
would have been 78.3 per cent instead of 74.3 per cent. 
It is clear, therefore, that since EngHsh is a most impor- 
tant subject, the inaccurate average is calculated to mislead 
uncritical readers of the report. And it follows that if 
marks are to be given at all, they should be graded 
according to the relative importance of the different 
subjects. 

(c) But marking, even when scientifically calculated, 
gives opinion without worth-while information, since the 
parent who really cares to know what his child is doing 
needs at least as many facts as are conveyed under the 
above heading of "remarks." Of course, to many parents, 
the material or content of the courses studied by their 
children at school belongs to the unknown worlds of edu- 
cation and of culture ; on the other hand, to some par- 
ents all marks and remarks are but sources of irritation. 
In many instances, children and youth would be left at 
school much longer than they are, some would even be 
sent to college who are now denied that privilege, but for 
the fact that the parents resent the terminology of these 
reports. 

(d) The attempt to meet the difficulties of the marking 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 1 57 

situation is given up by some who advocate separating 
children and youth into the two classes, — satisfactory and 
unsatisfactory ; those to be promoted, and those to be 
detained. This dismisses the difficulty, but does not solve 
it. The teacher must discriminate between the successful 
and the unsuccessful ; he must explain to parents the extent 
of the success and of the failure ; and he must work out 
these matters quantitatively by the processes of arithmetic. 
It is an unpleasant and a tiresome matter, this judging 
of efforts and results, this being set as a ruler and divider 
among one's kind. Behind the decision whether to give 
full and accurate opinions, within the limits of one's judg- 
ment and knowledge, or to refuse to give particulars 
upon the matter, there is an important philosophy. If the 
school and the home are to be correlated and kept closely 
interested in one another, then two things follow, viz. : — 

1. One or the other, the school or the home, must in 
respect to the development of the child be superior. 

2. The school must give to the home all the information 
requested. 

It follows, therefore, that any definite report by the 
teacher to the parent is a recognition of the parent's 
right at least of criticism, if not of appeal and of review. 
It follows, also, that any refusal of such definite informa- 
tion amounts to a denial of the desirability of a mutual 
understanding between the school and the home. 

An observer of educational conditions finds that the 
tendency of city administration is to deny the superiority 
of the home to the school and the need of any correlation, 
while the contrary tendency prevails in village and rural 
schools. One finds, also, that the tendency in primary 
grades and in colleges and universities is toward withhold- 
ing definite detailed marks, while the contrary is true in 



158 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

grammar grades and in high schools and academies. This 
is an extremely suggestive situation. It shows the weak- 
ness of the non-compulsory public school grades and the 
strength of the compulsory grades and of the schools of 
the higher learning, for opposite reasons : the lower grades 
because the parents have no recourse against the teachers ; 
the higher institutions because they are for the privileged 
pupils only. Full reporting by the middle schools tends, 
no doubt, both to a strengthening of the confidence of the 
parents of those pupils who do stay at school through early 
adolescence and to discouraging the attendance of pupils 
whose parents cannot see the meaning of Latin and 
Physics and Trigonometry. It is also scarcely to be 
doubted that when compulsory attendance includes the 
years of early adolescence, the marking of pupils scien- 
tifically as the basis for reports to parents will not be 
attempted. 

It is sometimes agreed that because in " real life," that 
is, life out in the open conflicts of the world, in times of 
crisis the whole man comes up for relentless examination, 
therefore, at various stages, the boy should be put through 
a universal test. This by no means follows. Because the 
timber is to become a joist and to bear huge weight, is not 
quite a good reason for cutting down a sapling. Trees 
growing upon ledges of rock on the sides of mountains in 
the full drift of the winds do not make the largest growth. 
An examination is a kind of storm that it is well to postpone 
until rather late in life. One might perhaps well say, the 
later the better. Eighteen or nineteen years of age is 
early enough to begin examinations. 

Earlier than this epoch, instead of extensive, drastic ex- 
aminations, there should be required at frequent intervals, 
— the lower the grade the greater the frequency, — brief 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS 1 59 

reviews of the topics immediately traversed. In primary- 
work, the daily lessons should be part review, part ad- 
vance, with no review test covering even in fourth year 
more than a fortnight. In the so-called " grammar grades," 
fifth year to eighth, the review tests should cover not over 
a month of work. In the secondary school, the six-weeks ■ 
period should be the basis, with semi-annual review tests ■" 
added in the third and fourth years. Throughout the/ 
course, from kindergarten through the city college and nor-" 
mal school, whenever and wherever marks are given, then 
and there the daily work should count at least one-half in 
questions of promotion, of detention, and of demotion. 

This daily-work mark, however, need not be such liter- 
ally. Let the teacher keep sincerely in mind what kind 
of work the pupil is doing daily, and enter upon his record 
two or three or four times a month his opinions in a for- 
mal mark as to what the daily work deserves, doing this 
before examining the paper in the written test ; and then 
let him average the two, taking each as half, or the daily 
work as two-thirds or three-fourths in the average in one 
or other of these ways, viz. : — 

Daily work taken as J 70 60 85 75 
Test to be taken as ^ 

Daily work taken as | 70 60 85 75 
Test to be taken as + 



Average 72.5 




80 




76.2+ Gen. Ave. 


72.5 X 


2= 145 


80 


80 




3|22S 




75 Gen. Ave. 




85% 




80 


■- 335. ^ 


^ 4 = 83I Gen. Ave. 



Daily work taken as f 8 9 9 8 
Test to be taken as \ 

85 X 3 = 255, -1-80 

To some, this method will seem needlessly precise ; but 
where any honors or ranking may be dependent, marking 
cannot be too precise. 



l60 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

But shall the superintendent or the board of superintend- 
ents or the supervisor of this or that never issue from the 
main office a set of examinations to determine the profi- 
ciency of the pupils ? In a large city, where the super- 
visor does not know every teacher and pupil, never. If he 
chooses to issue tests, let them be solely for the sake of 
standardismg Mid equalizing the work of the various 
schools, and be for the central office alone. The results 
should not affect the promotion of a single child or even 
be published or known to him or to his parents or to the 
public as respects individuals. Moreover, these tests should 
invariably be brief. If any are ever given, let them be 
brief and frequent so as to arouse but little excitement and 
to occasion but little extra fatigue. The time required may 
be set as twenty minutes in primary grades, forty in gram- 
mar grades, an hour in the high schools, and an hour and 
a half in normal schools and colleges. These represent 
maximum limits.^ 

A question has arisen as to whether records of one kind 
and another shall be forwarded with the class from year to 
year for the guidance of the successive teachers. There 
is much to be said on each side of the argument. The 
value of certain kinds of information is considerable : the 
business of the parent; the number of boys and girls in 
the family; birth and parentage; age of entering school; 
physical defects not obvious, as partial bhndness in one 
eye ; a spinal curvature. But the weight of opinion seems 
to be that no records should be passed forward from 
teacher to teacher as to co^idnct, scholarship, and character 
{i.e. reputation), but that there should be a clean slate, as 
it were, with each promotion or transfer. Such records as 

' In the case of girls between eleven and eighteen, formal, rigid, and extensive examina- 
tions are unforgivable offences against themselves, their future consorts, and posterity. Vide 
page 105, supra. 



PROGRAMMES AND RECORDS l6l 

there are should be for the office files of the principal and 
superintendent. Perhaps too much school gossip circu- 
lates now from room to room, from school to school, from 
district to district. The bad boy in Anderson may be 
the good boy in Bradford ; the failure in Carter, the suc- 
cess in Dayton. Children change faster and more com- 
pletely than do adults. They turn over new leaves so 
quickly that often we fail to see the process.^ 

^ It is because education is a process of internal change, — as Froebel showed us in the 
Edttcation of Man, from self-activity and self-determination, the latter as important as 
the former, — that we are not able to accept certain theories of education as true. Some 
theories appear to the daily class teacher as grandiose and unreal ; e.g. (i) the sociological 
and (2) the historical (culture-epoch) . Other theories appear amyclous and lacunal to serious 
students of education ; e.g. (3) the opportunistic and (4) the eclectic. (5) Others appear 
incomplete to both educators and educationists ; e.g. (6) the disciplinary, (7) the scien- 
tific, and (8) the (objectively) cultural. It is possible that a (9) formal psychophysical 
or physiopsychical theory will be developed at once so broad and real as to satisfy all 
concerned ; but it is more probable that the solution of the problem will be a truly (10) philo- 
sophical theory. As affairs stand now, education does not seem to know its polar star. In 
such case, even a good compass avails nothing. 

The sociological theory, when properly constructed out of the historical, offers immediate 
practical help in the improvement of our present opportunistic courses. An eclectic prin- 
ciple, systematically pursued for some years, may gradually approximate to a philosophical 
standard. The physiopsychic theory, when duly genetic in all lines (process and functioning 
of ideas [Wundt, Titchener, and Baldwin], origin and process of race and soul [Hall and 
Dewey], and evolution of body into humanity [Drummond, Foster and Balfour, Calderwood 
and Tyler]), accounts for the process of internal change. Drawing as it does upon both phys- 
iology and psychology, it is incidentally an adequate test by which to divide pseudo-educators 
from the real. So rich, however, is human nature that a youth of resources in himself may 
be educated by materials and methods assembled by opportunities upon whom personally the 
light of educational theory has never dawned. 

Our hope now in America is by a correct and ample synthesis to arrive at a philosophy 
of education. 



CHAPTER IX 
AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 

Great efforts are now being made in various quarters to 
relate more closely the school and the home, teachers and 
parents. Many devices are being resorted to for the 
accomplishment of this purpose. There are parents' after- 
noons, somewhat in the manner of district-school entertain- 
ments, when the children speak set pieces and the school 
trustee makes some remarks. There are elaborate forms 
of reports to parents and acknowledgments by them. 
There are special visiting or exhibition days when the 
parents are expected to come to see their children do 
the regular daily work. There are days for reviews and 
prizes. Collections of money, of books, and of pictures, 
are sometimes solicited for the equipment or decoration 
of school, assembly-room, and hallways, or of class- 
rooms. 

But the whole force of civilization seems to run counter 
to the movement for the correlation, one may even say 
reconciliation, of school and home. 

As the school waxes, the home wanes. This is not cause 
and effect, however; both movements are the effects of 
the same cause, which is a certain social decadence. 
This decadence manifests itself in the decline of the pri- 
mary social institutions and the rise of the secondary. 

The primary institutions are : — 

Property, Home, Church, Industry, and War. 
162 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 163 

The secondary institutions are : — 

State, School, Culture, Charity, and Business.^ 
The historical progress is a zigzag : — 

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS 

Integrating 
primary secondary 

I. Property 

2. State 

/ 

3. Home 

\ 

4. School 

/ 

5. Church 

6. Culture 
7. Industry 

8. Charity 

Disintegrating 
I. War 

\ 

II. Business 

When civilized man reaches the last stages, he has drawn 
away from the first. The workers in the fields of culture 
and of charity are not and cannot be devoted to the 
interests of property and of family. It may be said that 
in the dawn of history, man was merely human : he cared 
only for himself and for his own. Next he became tribal, 
poUtical. He grew later into the patriarchate or the 

1 War IS the antitheme of the first four ; Business, the antitheme of the last four. A 
Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values in Education, Chapter II. 



l64 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

matriarchate. Then arose the temple with its teach- 
ing; and after this, the religious notion and its nec- 
essary structure, the church. Society had now become 
complex; and the scientific and artistic cultures became 
necessary. Social order preserved and multiplied hu- 
manity ; and systematic industry, based on science and 
practised in arts, became established. Last, we are 
learning to love and to cherish the young and the old, 
the sick and the infirm ; we are becoming charitable, 
or, to speak more accurately, we are developing some 
definite institutions of both preventative and also remedial 
charity. 

As we move cityward, as more and more we become 
citizens by birth and by rearing, we get away farther and 
farther from the soil and from the productions of the field, 
chief of which is physical man himself. And we become 
more and more superficial, secondary, abstract in thought 
and in constitution. Charity, Culture, School, and State 
subtend ever larger and larger arcs in our angles of vision ; 
Industry, Church, Home, and Property ever recede more 
and more upon the edges of the angle of our in- 
terests. 

And, in addition, as War declines. Business increases. 
These two modes of chaos are forever trying to destroy 
the cosmos of our constructive social institutions. War is 
flagrant, open, inconstant, tempestuous ; Business is subtle, 
reticent, constant, maelstromic. 

We talk of preparation for life in the social institutions ; 
we talk of correlating two of these institutions; but we 
seldom think what a social institution is, and almost never 
define the various institutions accurately. A social insti- 
tution is a popular mode of thought in respect to the com- 
mon life and for or against the common welfare so habitual 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 165 

as to compel consequent action} Take a thousand persons 
out of a thousand different civiUzed communities ; put them 
irrevocably together ; and, behold, they are making wealth 
and acquiring property, establishing customs and laws, set- 
tling disputes and preserving order, marrying, teaching 
the ignorant and the young, worshipping, painting, sing- 
ing, constructing, and healing : moreover, they are fighting 
and trading one with another, hoping to get something for 
nothing or more for less. Why ? Because we think to-day 
in the terms of having and excluding — which is Property; 
of legislating and judging — which is Government; of 
marrying and breeding — which is Home-making ; of 
teaching and training — which is Education; of worship- 
ping — which is Religion ; of the Arts and Sciences, of 
Systematic Labor, and of Systematic Helping : more- 
over, whom we cannot persuade we would overpower — 
which is War ; and whom we cannot overpower, we would 
outbargain — - which is Business. 

Now we are in a position to ask : Why should we try 
to relate Home and School? And why should we pre- 
pare for all the social institutions ? The latter question 
scarcely belongs in this text for thorough answer ; but the 
former lies in the course of the argument. Both Home 
and School centre upon the child. These two institutions 
exist, as do no other, almost solely for the sake of the child, 
the same child. Nor in this common purpose, to develop 
the child, do Home and School conflict. The trouble that 
we meet in our effort to relate Home to School and School 
to Home arises from two main causes. To the more im- 
portant of these, attention has already been directed : the 

1 It is well to see clearly in what sense social institutions, traditions, customs, notions, 
and habits are " chains," as Rousseau labelled them. Contrary to his critics, let us agree 
that the label is not a libel but an important true name. By these chains, the ship of the 
present is firmly fastened to the sheet-anchors of the past and rides out the storms safely. 



1 66 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

Home is visibly disintegrating. Parentage and parent- 
hood are declining in importance as human interests. It 
has never been otherwise, and in an advancing civilization 
accompanied by an increasing population it can never be 
otherwise, for the masses of the adults, that is, of the 
parents, are being constantly left farther and farther in 
the rear of those who know the best in the thought and 
practice of the world. Moreover, it cannot be otherwise 
until the parents themselves en masse join the thinkers 
and the interpreting teachers in their search after knowl- 
edge. The rescue of the adults from ignorance, which 
is the new phase of the mission of the universal school, 
is to be at the same time in part the redemption, the re- 
vival, of the home. 

This is the true way to correlate Home and School : 
that parent and child shall together with the teacher study 
in the library and in the laboratory the things appropriate 
for each of them respectively to know. The parent may 
go to school or institute or college, call it what one chooses, 
in the evenings or upon holidays or during vacation 
seasons ; but wherever and whenever he goes, it is in 
the same mood as his child goes. And the teacher re- 
ceives him in the same mood. 

We see this upon a small scale in various institutions 
even now. And the hope grows strong that we shall see 
it fully and generously estabHshed everywhere in the 
land. 

What, then, is the true situation.? Why do parents 
shrink from meeting principals and teachers } It is the 
meeting of unequals and of aliens : the parents do not 
really understand what the children are doing, and they 
are both too ignorant and too oppressed with the world 
to care much, if at all. They send their children to 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 167 

school for five or six years, what to learn they do not 
and often cannot clearly know. 

Those who have tried parents' organizations of one kind or another 
will understand completely what facts lie behind the foregoing generali- 
zations. The persons who attend such meetings may be classified as 
follows, viz. : — 

a. The very ignorant, such as foreigners of the lower European 
classes, accepting humbly the opportunity to meet teachers, whom they 
conceive as of high social class. 

b. Parents curious to see their own children or their neighbors' chil- 
dren " on the platform." 

c. Politicians anxious to win and to hold the favor of the com- 
munity about the school. 

d. A few really earnest mothers, anxious about the welfare of their 
children. 

e. A few strangers desirous to see the interior of the school building. 

f. Those with nothing else to do and nowhere else to go. 

g. Recent " alumni " of the school. 

But of men really concerned for education as such or for the prog- 
ress of the particular school or for that of their own children, there 
are almost none. Of women similarly concerned, there are but few. 

Notwithstanding all these obstacles and all these down- 
ward tendencies, in most school communities, parents* 
organizations tending educationward are well worth the 
effort to establish and to maintain them. To make them 
successful, the following suggestions are offered, viz. : — 

1. To correlate their entertainments and other sessions 

{a) with evening lecture courses, 
{b) with evening school courses. 

2. To draw in as large a number as may be of the chil- 
dren of the parents as participators in the exercises.^ 

3. For the head of the school to maintain a place 
upon the executive committee or other governing board 

* In a certain city, the continuance of an organization for ten years is accounted for by 
the principal by one characteristic of every session : there is always at least one class exer- 
cise, involving the attendance of at least forty children and their eighty parents. 



l68 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

of the organization, and then by one means or another 
to secure the active cooperation of at least two or three 
parents in the work of the committee, — in short, to direct 
by suggestion. 

4. To announce the special features of every session at 
least ten days before, and to hold every session upon a 
regular day of the month, and never to vary, 

5. To give the work ceaseless publicity. 

6. To introduce in the entertainment or session itself 
as much genuine value as is consistent with constant in- 
terest. 

7. Invariably, refreshments or souvenirs. 

8. Invariably, a hand-shaking reception committee. 

9. Always in the near foreground, some material ob- 
ject for " funds " — more pictures, a piano, a picnic. 

10. To have, every evening, one or more parents con- 
tribute some feature of the programme. 

Parents' organizations usually meet evenings ; mothers' 
clubs usually meet afternoons. These latter are often 
restricted to mothers only of the kindergarten children. 
This, however, is a serious and usually an unfortunate 
limitation, because these children are seldom in the 
kindergarten more than a year ; with each new generation 
of children, there is a new " mothers' club." The kinder- 
garten mothers' club, indeed, is seldom more than a fine 
name for the kindergartner's afternoon tea or reception. 
This, indeed, is the true secret of the success in keeping 
alive any mothers* club, — to conduct it as a social tea. 
But a good mothers' club, like the good parents' organiza- 
tion, is much more than a teachers' reception or afternoon 
tea to mothers. As already indicated, the mothers should 
be to the fore, and the teachers in the rear. 

Parents' organizations are tap-roots of the school into 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 1 69 

the community : the children and the youth are roots and 
rootlets. Together, they sustain the trunk, branches, and 
leaves of the tree. 

For the city, a large public education society, led by 
persons of good standing, is invaluable ; but it is difficult to 
establish, though not so difficult to maintain. 

Both the city education society and the school parents' 
organization should be controlled for all details by an ex- 
ecutive committee or board of governors or similar central 
authority.^ The general membership exercises its power 
by its selection of the officers. 

A city education society requires both an office, open for 
at least an hour or so regularly every day, and a place of 
meeting, at once accessible and commodious.^ It should 
appoint a secretary and a treasurer with a view to per- 
manence in these offices. 

A successful public education society is in danger of arousing the 
jealousy of the board of education. Nor can it perform its social duty 
unless it does from time to time make suggestions to the board of edu- 
cation and to the superintendent of schools. But this is no valid reason 
for suppressing or even discouraging such a society. Without conflict, 
there can be.no freedom ; and without freedom, there can be no progress, 
for all human progress is progress at once in freedom and in order. In 
a certain sense, the free education society represents the one, and the 
governmental board represents the other. 

These volunteer organizations should be induced by the 
administrative officers of the school system to work for the 
introduction of desirable new features. This work should 
be done mainly in two directions, first, public sentiment, 
and, second, the keepers of the public purse. All other 
effort is more or less waste. To reach and to affect public 
sentiment, by far the best avenue is that of the press. 

1 For type of control, m'lie Appendix E, " Constitution of the Federal Schoolmen's Club," 
for Virginia, District of Columbia, and Maryland. 

^ Baltimore has a notable society of this character. 



170 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

However much we may in matters familiar to ourselves 
discount the published news and explain away editorial 
opinion, in all other matters we are the passive and 
obedient creatures of printers' ink. It cannot be otherwise. 
We believe what we are told. Of the thousands of items 
in a single issue of a city daily, we usually know noth- 
ing of more than a dozen or a score. To most, of 
course, we are utterly indifferent; but of hundreds of 
items, strange and interesting, for a day or two we say, 
"I saw it in the paper," or " The Times said so-and-so." 
Three days after, we forget how we learned it, but know 
that it is so. 

The other ways of affecting public opinion are to reach 
the ministers, the physicians, and other professional per- 
sons; to inform the teachers themselves; to publish pam- 
phlets ; and to influence the popular leaders, in business, 
in the unions, and in other associations of men. 

For want of time and for fear of arousing the antagonism 
of board members, of taxpayers, and of professional politi- 
cians,^ the school superintendent himself cannot do much 
more for a special reform than to recommend it in his 
written reports, in personal conversations, and in public 
addresses. He cannot go about getting votes for it. 

A good city or town school system requires three kinds 
of officers concerned directly with the health of the pupils, 
— physicians, nurses, and physical culture teachers. The 
physicians are commonly styled " medical inspectors," and 
are also commonly appointed by the public board of health. 
The duties of a medical inspector consist in visiting daily 
each of the schools assigned to him, of there inspecting all 
the pupils referred to him by teacher and principal, of 

' Reference is made, of course, to the typical, not to the unusual, board members, tax- 
payers, and politicians. I hope that when the history of American education is written, certain 
of these lovers of their fellowmen will be included. Vide Our Schools, page ii6. 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 171 

sending home with suitable notes such as seem to have 
contagious or infectious diseases or such other diseases and 
ailments as require medical attendance, of notifying at 
at once by telephone or messenger the central office of the 
board of health regarding the cases perilous to others, 
of making written records of all cases referred to him, and 
of reporting them to school and health authorities. Other 
duties properly assignable to the medical inspectors are 
thorough, regular, and frequent investigation of the sanitary 
condition of every school building and yard, with written 
report thereon ; the holding of stated and reasonably fre- 
quent meetings with the officers and teachers of the schools, 
to instruct them in the nature and symptoms of all diseases 
of children and youth ; the determining by personal exam- 
ination what pupils shall be assigned to the atypical classes ; 
making recommendations as to buildings and repairs to 
the official body that controls these matters ; making sug- 
gestions as to school courses and programmes; exempting 
pupils upon certain conditions from all-day regular school 
attendance ; vaccinating indigent children ; ^ and examining 
candidates for positions as teachers and for entrance into 
normal schools and teachers' colleges.^ 

Quite as important as the medical inspector is the school 
nurse. Where there is a good corps of school nurses,^ 



1 1 am not a vaccination enthusiast. I have invariably enforced strictly the vaccination 
rules; but I know one child in Washington whose death was entirely due to vaccination. Of 
course, either the vaccine was impure or the sore was carelessly exposed, or the child was 
unhealthy. But at any rate, as the law teaches us, but for being vaccinated, the child would 
probably be alive. One of my own children, absolutely well and vigorous hitherto, was 
seriously ill from vaccination for two years. But I yield to the professional opinion of the 
experts, though with misgivings. I hope for something better. 

2 Here also I have some misgivings. I have seen some very good teaching and fairly good 
executive management by persons clearly invalids, by cripples, and by others whom most 
medical inspectors would not pass. The ambitious and talented city girl is apt to injure, and 
sometimes ruin, her health in the modern city high school. Vide page i6o, supra, 

8 As in Boston and in Rochester now. 



172 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

the medical inspectors can be reduced in number, for they 
will scarcely need to visit every school daily. 

The duties of the school nurse include visiting every 
school in her district daily ; tending personally to the easily 
remediable cases, but sending home others or referring 
them to the medical inspector ; dressing wounds and sores 
that would perhaps otherwise prevent regular attendance ; 
and in all other practical ways assisting the work of the 
school physician. The school nurse may reasonably be 
expected to follow up serious cases by visits to the homes 
of the pupils who are seriously ill ; to counsel the teachers 
carefully; to talk to parents at the meetings of parents' 
associations and of mothers' clubs ; and to systematize many 
pathological duties of public school administration. 

Both medical inspectors and school nurses should work 
in sympathy with the attendance officers and the physical 
culture teachers. 

Since the city itself is a manifestation of the gregarious 
spirit of mankind,^ the direct effect of that almost sufficient 
cause, it is scarcely an occasion of surprise that children 
in school desire to form clubs and to run in gangs about 
the streets, alleys, warehouses, vacant lots, and parks. 
Play and conspire in twos and in threes, in gangs and 
in clubs, they certainly will, whatever schoolmasters and 
schoolmistresses think or desire. The one proper course 
for us to pursue is to regulate these associations, to give 
them educative content, and to see that there are no chil- 
dren lost in isolation. For the child that does not work 
and play with his fellows is in danger of the spiritual dis- 
ease of loneliness in the midst of society. 

Even in grammar schools, there should be various clubs 

> Notes, pages 109 and 142, snf>ra. This city-building, not "intriguing," is what Aris- 
totle meant when he said, "Man is a political animal." (noAis = city.) 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 173 

and societies under the direction and supervision of the 
teachers. To say this is not to advocate pupil self-govern- 
ment, which because of child-nature is impossible ; but it 
is to advocate pupil development through directed self- 
activity. Such clubs and societies as are formed should 
be the outgrowth of the school interests as the pupils 
present them and as the teachers see them. They may 
include the following, viz. : — 

Debating clubs. 

Literary clubs. 

Dramatic clubs. 

Athletic teams, baseball, basket ball, bicycle, football, field (running, 
jumping, tennis, etc.). 

Current events societies. 

Teams for playing matches in checkers, chess, "authors," domi- 
noes, etc. 

Cadet (military drill) companies. 

Reading clubs. 

Orchestras. 

Camera (photography) clubs. 

Stamp collectors' club. 

School reception association. 

School papers and other publications. 

Periodical and book clubs. 

Teams for mechanical construction, dressmaking, etc. 

Any, but of course not all, of such clubs and teams as 
these, from playing marbles and flying kites to building 
model (miniature) houses, may be established in any elemen- 
tary school ; and many of them should exist in every high 
school. It may be thought that the teachers who run such 
enterprises will not have time to "teach school." They 
will scarcely need to teach school, for where the energies 
of pupils are liberated, there school almost teaches itself.^ 

1 In this kind of school, the teacher (in the fine but now obsolete meaning of the word) 
*' learns " the pupil this and that ; i.e., causes hinm to learn. Cf. German, lehren. 



174 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

It is not to be supposed that these clubs will be of the 
permanent and formal nature of the clubs of adults. They 
will come and go and come again. 

For teachers' colleges, normal schools, and high schools, 
there has arisen the secret society, which manifests itself 
in various types. Of these types, three are important, viz. : 
the national fraternity, with chapters in different commu- 
nities ; the local society, represented in several schools with 
a central room for meetings ; and the special school society, 
sometimes for both sexes, but usually confined to one. 
The professional opinion of educators has already been 
registered upon this subject; and all that I propose is to 
record the opinion. Whether or not college Greek letter 
fraternities and sororities are desirable is a mooted ques- 
tion, and there is room for difference of opinion. But edu- 
cators in control of city schools are practically unanimous 
in their opposition to any and every kind of secret society. 

1. We object to the secrecy itself, holding that both 
parents and teachers have the right to know what the 
activities, the interests, and the opinions of our children 
are. 

2. We object to the clannishness with "snobbery" that 
almost inevitably results from the secrecy. 

3. We object to the expenses incident to secret societies, 
— the fraternity pins, the refreshments, the excursions. 

4. We object to the time consumed in planning and in 
carrying on the meetings, 

5. We especially object to the national fraternity, which 
is directed by alumni beyond the jurisdiction of the school 
authorities, 

6. We know that the open society is far better. By 
the open society is meant one whose meetings are held 
either at school or in some home, and may be attended by 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 175 

any parent or teacher, and whose constitution and by-laws 
are fully published and understood. 

Those who have not had experience with secret societies 
may be surprised to know of their enterprises. Personally 
I know of these events : {a) holding " smokers " in rented 
room ; {b) playing cards there for money ; {c) trying to ; 
control class elections ; {d) trying to intimidate the facultyf 
into issuing diplomas; {e) controlling votes on the board -^ 
of education ; (/) raising purses to bet on interscholastic' 
athletics ; {g) hazing ; (Jt) forcing resignation of school 
principal ; (z) splitting school into two camps, " frats " and 
"nobodies " ; (/) holding costly dances and suppers. 

The question is sometimes raised as to whether the open 
society should be allowed to maintain a limited member- 
ship and an eligible list. In small schools, with few socie- 
ties and clubs, no ; in large schools, with many societies, 
yes. 

The school principal or some teacher well versed in 
parliamentary law should attend the sessions of all these 
clubs from time to time and should give instruction in the 
conduct of public business. Teachers should be designated 
as auditors for every club team or society that requires 
money to be collected and expended.^ In this kind of 
work, an ounce of prevention saves many a pound of cure. 
In our age, children and youth have almost no sense of 
"mine" and "thine" or "ours." 

The work of these open societies of school pupils may 
often be presented to advantage in the meetings of parents' 
associations. 

1 In a certain city, a boy treasurer fell behind $36, which he misappropriated largely in 
taking schoolgirls to Saturday matinees at the theatres. He stole a valuable microscope, 
pawned it, set fire to the schoolhouse to destroy the evidence, was arrested and sent to an 
asylum for the criminal insane, and released months afterward with a record that has followed 
him through life. Another instance was the embezzlement of $87 from a school paper, reim- 
bursed with great difiSculty by very poor parents. 



176 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

The place of athletics in large city schools is now becom- 
ing important, but by no means more important than it 
deserves to be. Physical exercise, spontaneous or directed, 
in-doors and out-doors, individual or social, — as play, 
games, or military drill, — is one of the means of partially 
reHeving humanity from the curse of the city. For the 
control of the athletics of a city school system, there is 
perhaps no better device than a board of faculty advisers. 
There should be one member from each school that main- 
tains athletic teams, and at least one representative from 
the physical culture department. This board should be 
the court of final jurisdiction on facts, with an appeal to 
the board of superintendents upon questions of rules and 
regulations. 

The present tendency is against the extension of inter- 
scholastic games between different cities ; but the policy of 
permitting such games between schools of the same grade 
and character within the same school system (or indeed 
similar private schools also) is not yet sufficiently chal- 
lenged to be considered unwise or even doubtful. 

The main issue is this : to secure for every boy and 
for every girl athletic opportunity, and to enforce athletic 
endeavor by all who are not physically incapacitated for 
games, drill, play, and work. It is really much more 
important for a boy to be able to skate a fast mile than 
to know how to scan a stanza of Virgil or of Ovid. I 
would rather be able to play a position on a baseball 
nine than to know how to write a chemical formula. The 
point for the city school administrator is to institute and to 
operate such machinery as will insure that every healthy 
boy and girl of sixteen or eighteen shall become sufficiently 
skilled in some form of physical diversion, and hence will 
enjoy doing it so much, that as an adult he will not become 



AIDS AND ACCESSORIES 1 77 

a wreck because of invalidism, no matter how great be the 
strain upon him. Every full-grown man and woman on 
earth should find regular exercise in some physical recrea- 
tion or sport — be it golf, polo, tennis, canoeing, riding, 
bicycling, or walking. This interest must begin in child- 
hood and must be thoroughly developed in adolescence. 

In addition to the public education society, the parents' 
clubs, and similar organizations of the citizens interested 
in education, there should be certain general organiza- 
tions of the officers, teachers, and alumni of the school 
system, e.g. : — 

A principals' club or association. 

A male teachers' association. 

A high school teachers' association. 

A (general) teachers' association. 

A normal school (or teachers' college) alumni association. 

A high school alumni association. 

Teachers' reading club (or clubs). 

Seminars (for special subjects). 

A club of pensioners and teachers emeriti. 

Most clubs and associations of this character require the 
following committees, viz. : — 

A legislative committee (to propose to the proper authorities recom- 
mendations, new laws, the repeal of old laws, rules, regulations, etc.). 
A programme committee. 
An executive (or ways and means) committee. 

It is the absence of such societies that makes it possible 
for politicians in and out of office to corrupt the teaching 
corps. Their presence gives dignity and power of re- 
sistance to self-respecting teachers. 



CHAPTER X 

CONVERTING THE OCCUPATION INTO A PROFESSION 

In the process of building up the wage-earning occupa- 
tion of keeping school into the profession of education, 
one of the baffling conditions is that afforded by the loca- 
tion of the superintendent of schools as interpreting medi- 
ator between the school and the world, — the world being 
immediately and often aggressively represented to him by 
a board of education. His position is unique in many 
respects : he is appointed by a board of control and cease- 
lessly watched, not only for every move he makes and for 
every word he says, but also for the thoughts that he is 
suspected to have. 

His case is not paralleled by that of most other persons in so-called 
''government office." This is a reason why his should not be consid- 
ered a government office. He is an executive of lay making and con- 
trol, constantly directed by his electors and often appointed during the 
pleasure of the board. When he has a term of three, four, or six years, 
he knows that he will be reelected or defeated by a board more or less 
different in membership from that which originally elected him.^ 

* In a certain city of over 100,000 population, the term of board membership has been 
2 years. Of its 9 members, 7 were changed by defeat, resignation, or death within 5 months. 
In a city of similar size, in 62 years of the service of superintendents, the average term was 3J 
years, and the longest term 7 years. In a certain other city, 2 out of 8 members were changed; 
but it was immediately an entirely different board, with a new president, a new secretary, and 
a new policy. In a fourth city, a woman became a board member; and with that single 
change, the superintendent found it impossible to proceed and resigned soon afterwards. In 
a fifth city, a board stood one majority for six years for the superintendent ; an election gave 
him two majority, whereupon his supporters split into two factions, and he was forced to re- 
sign. [For the theory of resignation, vide Our Schools, pp. 99, 164, 395.] I have in mind a 
city where the choice for one of the high school principalships of a man who was extremely 

178 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 179 

An analogy occurs. Suppose that a senator from Vermont or Texas 
should so conduct himself as to displease the legislature of the State, 
and suppose that this legislature should watch his work every moment, 
and suppose that when occasion arose this legislature could abruptly 
terminate his work and his salary, — we should then have a case parallel 
with that of the superintendent.^ 

Board meetings, committee meetings, conferences with 
individual board members, interviews with friends of mem- 
bers, and interviews with reporters keen to discover his 
plans and publish them abroad, are one and all so many 
traps for the superintendent's falling. Small wonder that 
he is seldom an educator ; that after a dozen years of sus- 
picion, he has forgotten too often what the true purpose of 
the school is. 

The superintendent must beware of the Scylla on the 
rocks, which is lay domination. 

On the other hand, Charybdis whirls, the maelstrom of 
school intrigue.^ 

The superintendent is known to be half politician ; and 
the educators in the school service of large cities secretly, 
sometimes openly, are inclined to characterize him as " all 
politician." Every visit that he makes to a schoolroom, 
every talk that he has with a subordinate, every address 
that he gives to the teachers or before the general public, 
every proposition that he makes tp the board of education, 

clever in politics forced a superintendent out, though this man himself did not desire the 
superintendency, nor did he take it, nor did he have any candidate for it, nor was he a better 
equipped educator than the superintendent. It was a mere contrast in personalities and in 
personal methods that so affected the board as to produce this result. 

1 It may be objected that a senator is a more important person than a city school superin- 
tendent, that he needs more freedom in which to do his work, and that other senators are 
watching his course every day. I challenge the first proposition, believing that education is 
quite as important as government ; as to the second, I venture that both senator and super- 
intendent require freedom ; and make the correction that his fellow senators are his colleagues, 
not his paymasters nor in any sense his superiors. 

2 Often these combine, as the walls of the dungeon close in on the prisoner. When this 
happens, the only hope is the conscience of the community. 



l80 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

must manifest enthusiastic commendation of the schools as 
they are lest he be suspected of intending revolution or at 
least such reform as will displace somebody from his or 
her present position. He must be an educator, or seem 
to be one in the school ; but he must not be one or seem 
to be one, at least not too earnestly, out in the world. 

The superintendent, therefore, is to interpret the esoteric 
in the terms of the exoteric. 

He is to mediate between the workers in what is at once 
a philosophy, a science, and an art, and the public for 
whom they work. 

The rider of two horses, the servant of two masters, or 
the reconciler is not apt long to exercise the function in the 
same community. As soon as he begins to cleave to the 
the one and to despise the other, he becomes the rejected 
of men. The term of the school superintendent is short, 
very short. For the United States, it does not average 
three years in the same community. Very few men who 
go into the superintendency reach fifty years of age in that 
office. 

We are all Napoleons ; for each one there is a Waterloo. 
Now and then a genius escapes the fate of most or seems 
to do so ; and conditions are gradually growing better, for 
reasons that I am about to recite. 

The lot of the superintendent as interpreter between the 
teaching force and the public may be ameliorated in any 
or in all of its three terms. He himself as the middle 
term may be improved in his skill as an interpreter, or one 
or the other of the parties to be reconciled may be im- 
proved. All three improvements are coming to pass in 
America. The teachers are coming to be educators, espe- 
cially in our cities. As such, they are beginning to un- 
derstand that the interpreting superintendent may not 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION i8l 

always, must not necessarily, be a traitor to their " inter- 
ests " because he is the teacher nearest to the board of 
education. The people are beginning to understand that 
they should not represent themselves in the persons of 
their worst, or even of their average, but of their best. 
The world is beginning in some communities to display on 
the board of education, not politics, in the persons of ward 
bosses or heelers, but culture, in the persons of physi- 
cians, journalists, lawyers, men of wealth and rearing.^ 
It is usually a slow, zigzag process ; occasionally, it comes 
in revolution. 

We cannot have notably better schools in America until 
we have better school superintendents ; but the boards are 
slow either to elect better superintendents or to let present 
superintendents display their best qualities. And we can- 
not have better boards until the level of culture lifts or 
until the persons of culture wake to the facts. The culti- 
vated class will not wake of itself, — a mere commonplace, 
but quite essential to the argument. Who will wake it ? 

There is no good man in America, able-bodied and in 
the possession of a decent competence, who is not either 
in public life or willing to enter it. Thousands of men, 
well thought of among themselves, really good in respect 
to many small matters concerning property, family, church, 
business, and " society," are not good men because they 
have no moral energy or purpose ; they need the shock 
of being publicly pronounced private-minded, negligent of 
their duty to community and to nation, irresponsible, and 
essentially ungrateful. They need to think, to investigate, 
to suffer shocks, and to act. 



1 Vide Appendix A. Wherever good schools have been permitted, there a board led by 
men of wealth and culture has suppressed its own notions and carried out the plans of pro- 
fessional educators. 



1 82 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

In the development of better schools in any community 
we need the following, viz. : — 

(a) a better public sentiment, 

(b) a better board of education,^ 

(c) a better superintendent, 

(d) a better teaching body. 

To secure the last of these desiderata, the only one that 
is in itself essential, the most important instrument is the 
municipal or State board of examiners. In fact, we usu- 
ally find that municipal boards have lower standards for 
certificates than have the State boards ; in theory, the stat- 
utes should make the State certificates to teach the minima. 
An ideal provision in the present situation is that no teacher 
without a State certificate shall be employed in any mu- 
nicipality, that the municipal authorities may add what- 
ever qualifications they choose, and that every municipality 
issuing certificates higher than those of the State shall 
appoint and maintain a board of examiners, each of whom 
shall hold the highest State certificate. 

A municipal board of examiners in a large city should 
consist of five members, of whom at least two should give 
their entire time to the work of examining applicants at 
stated intervals. The board should have a salaried clerk 
and such stenographers as may be required. The superin- 
tendent of schools should be a member ex officio and chair- 
man, and should not only nominate but also appoint the 
other members. 

In the conduct of such a board of examiners, there are 
several questions of importance. Of these, perhaps the 

1 The foregoing pages show that there are many steps to be taken before we can go from 
a better public sentiment to a better board, and so on ; but I mean here to triangulate only 
the high places in the argument. The good board represents fully the culture of a city and 
transacts purely financial business only. In this capacity, it is valuable and desirable. Such 
a board radiates information about the schools throughout the community, and advocates 
more and better education. Vide Appendix A, 2, and G, infra. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 183 

first in importance is the nature of the tenure of its mem- 
bers. Is it wise for the membership to be permanent? 
This seems to me to be one of these cases that admirably 
illustrate the old adage, — In medias res tutissima via. It 
exemplifies Aristotle's doctrine of the " golden mean." Let 
two members of the board be permanent ; let the other two 
be changed every four or five years. The superintendent 
will change often enough without any prescription of 
term. By this plan, some members know the history of 
conditions for the various positions for many years back, 
while others keep in touch with actual school work. In 
large cities, there are sufficient changes in principalships, 
heads of departments in high schools, and in directorships 
or supervisorships to make this plan of interchanging these 
members with principals and directors feasible. 

A second question is what proportion shall be assigned 
in the marks to the several subjects of examination. I have 
found the following satisfactory as a type : — 

Credits 

Major subject 30 

Minor subject 15 

Psychology 5 

History of education 5 

School management 5 

English and American literature . 5 

Theory and practice of teaching . 5 

Education 10 

Experience 10 

Oral questions upon answers to writ- 
ten questions 10 



Written, 60 credits 



Oral, 40 credits 



It has always seemed to me best to give a board of ex- 
aminers considerable leeway for evidences of personality. 
In all so-called " special subjects," such as drawing, physi- 
cal culture, music, it is desirable to see candidates actually 



1 84 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

teaching pupils or demonstrating to other teachers. Also, 
it has always seemed best to require tests in certain sub- 
jects for all candidates. When seventy credits are required 
for certification, a candidate who knows but little of psy- 
chology, literature, theory, and practice must do remarkably 
well in his major and minor. 

It is understood that no one is finally to be certified for 
teaching whose " documents " do not appear correct and 
who does not pass a satisfactory physical culture test.^ 

As to major and minor, the former should cover all the 
ground requisite for sound scholarship. Almost any com- 
bination should be allowed, e.g., not only Greek and Latin, 
but also History and Physics, or English Literature and 
Shopwork. Successful candidates should be certified only 
for the major subject. They may, however, pass several 
examinations for various subjects and thus secure certifi- 
cates for several majors. 

In the conduct of all examinations for teachers' and 
principals' certificates, it is important that records and 
papers should be filed permanently. Written tests should 
be anonymous, each candidate taking a number. No per- 
son who fails to get 6^ per cent (40 credits) in the written 
work should be admitted to the oral test.^ 

Here arises the question of competitive examinations for 
positions. Many self-respecting men seem to object to 
such examinations; and yet for most kinds of so-called 
" high-salaried positions " they constitute at once a safe- 
guard against favoritism and an assurance of the promo- 
tion of the best interests of the public. It is sometimes 
alleged that there is favoritism in the decision upon exam- 
inations. Such an allegation is seldom made by any one 
with knowledge of a standard city-school system. Trickery 

1 Vide page 171, supra. - On the basis of the plans, page 182. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 185 

is practically impossible because of the number of persons 
concerned in making the decision and because of the 
number of candidates.^ One of the real difficulties of city 
school administration is the presence of so many villagers 
who do not in the least understand the fundamental facts.^ 
These persons at best know about the superintendent and 
the teachers. They are entirely unable to comprehend the 
uses of hundreds of intermediate ' officers ; as, for exam- 
ple, here in the prevention of favoritism. The really com- 
petent superintendent is more afraid of favoritism lest it 
weaken his administration by rotting it than is the most 
persistent of gossips or the most violent of professional re- 
formers. And strange as it may seem, even the favoritism 
of an incompetent man does no more harm than his other 
acts of incompetence. 

The long examination is not to be commended. All the 
written papers of applicants should be strictly limited to 
not exceeding five or six hours of one day or three hours 
upon each of two days. We desire rather to sample the 
knowledge of a candidate than to exhaust it? For the few 
who pass the written tests and are admitted to the oral, 
there should be reserved an average of twenty minutes 
each for examination, to include all topics. 

In addition to the examination of applicants for cer- 
tificates and to the competitive examination of candidates 
(of whom many doubtless already hold certificates), there is 
a field for the services of an examining board not often 
occupied by it — the listing of text-books for use in the 
schools.* This clears away from the board of education 

^ Large cities have thousands of candidates every year for their hundreds, even thousands, 
of vacancies. 

2 Vide Chapter XXII, A Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values in Education. 

* Most cities make the passing mark too high. It should be from 50 to 70 per cent. 
When higher, too little is taught, and thoroughness is attempted at the expense of breadth. 

* This plan is in successful operation in Newark, N.J. 



1 86 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

a responsibility for which they are, of course, incompetent, 
and it gives to the superintendent of schools colleagues 
whom he can safely trust. They, in turn, will call upon 
committees of teachers to advise them. By performing 
these several duties solely in the light of educational prin- 
ciples, the municipal board of examiners can do much 
toward making education a profession. 

The topic of eligible lists for appointment to the stand- 
ard positions is of sufficient importance to require some 
additional treatment by itself. A comparatively short eli- 
gible list strengthens the technical position of the school 
administrator. He is not forced to take the first applicant 
who may appear with the minimum necessary documents. 
Given three or four names, when one person is not imme- 
diately available, he may take another essentially as good. 
A short list means one that will be exhausted not before, 
but at about the same time as the next examination takes 
place. A list that overlaps a new one when determined 
may lead to embarrassment. 

No person should ever be placed upon an eligible list 
whose services are not really desirable. When a board of 
education is notified that it can get ten good applicants 
for one kind of position to one of another, it should treat 
such notice as a warning to raise the salary of the second 
kind of position.^ 

The rank of a person upon an eligible list should be 
absolute — not to be changed except at his request. Later 
licenses should rank lower, irrespective of the mark 
attained. 

1 It is here that all prescriptions of salary by legislatures or powers other than the board 
of education are injurious. This is seen at its worst in the District of Columbia, where Con- 
gress not only fixes all salaries but prescribes how many salaries of each amount are available 
for the use of the school authorities, and directs in what positions they shall be paid. In 
consequence, there are some positions that cannot be filled, for there are no candidates at the 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 187 

Another topic that has already been mentioned deserves 
here a Httle more consideration, the text-book list. All the 
weight of professional opinion is now thrown for the open, 
optional list, with at least two or three titles for basic texts 
and a half dozen for supplementary material.^ The final 
choice of books actually to be purchased ^ is then to be 
made by the head of each school or by such director or 
supervisor as may have this authority. Books should not 
be changed lightly or often ; they should be adopted for 
a term of years, but not all should be reconsidered the 
same year. This term of adoption should be inviolate. 
Let mathematics come up one year, the languages the 
next, history a third year. The cycle should be not less 
than four nor more than seven years in duration. This plan 
is advantageous not only as a matter of money, but also as 
a matter of care in considering this most important subject. 
It also tends to the professionalization of the choice of 
books. 

It is often asked which is the better plan for arranging 
the superintendents, viz. : — 

A. Superintendent, 
1st Assistant, 
2d Assistant, 
3d Assistant, or 

B. Superintendent, 

X Associate superintendents.^ 
For most reasons, and for the more cogent reasons, the 
second plan is preferable. 

salaries prescribed. As Congress is in session but ten months in every two years, and can 
give but little attention at any time to District affairs, the principle is displayed here in the 
clear light of a negative instance. 

^ Vide Our Schools, pages 85-7. 

2 Schools should be given total allowances based upon per capita attendance. Vide 
plans in New York City and in Paterson, N.J. 

* Vide page 30, supra. 



l88 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

1 . By the plan of a board of supervision with a superin- 
tendent as chairman, and several associates as equal col- 
leagues, the community secures decisions upon numerous 
and varied facts and well-debated opinions as basis for 
educational action. 

2. Time is saved. There is less procedure to get a 
matter from a teacher up to the superintendent. 

3. There is less " red tape." 

4. There are less grades in the hierarchy; this means 
fewer causes for jealousy. The succession to the superin- 
tendency is not apparently predetermined. 

5. It is much easier to assign associates to various tasks 
than to assign assistants of several ranks. 

6. There is no salary problem of how to reconcile equal- 
ity of work with equity as to talent employed. 

7. Practically, it is easier for a superintendent to get a 
board of education (or other superior financial authority) 
to give him six associates than four assistants. 

8. A weak assistant may survive, though blocking the 
work : a weak associate cannot survive in competition 
with other associates. This also is a matter of experi- 
ence.i 

In the deliverance of teachers from bondage to hand-to- 
mouth wages, to employing boards, and to fear of poverty 
when invalided by old age or otherwise, nothing is more 
important than the pension. We find this provision for 
retirement in several different forms : — 

I. The purely private voluntary "fund," managed by a 
society usually incorporated for the purpose. This may be 
called "a teachers' aid and annuity association." 

1 To preserve its interest in education and its vitality, a city school system must take 
some of its higher officers as well as some of its class teachers from outside. One in 
three is the standard. Inbreeding is as pernicious in the superintendencies and principal- 
ships as in the other grades of the service. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 189 

2. A similar " fund," authorized by the school law, into 
which teachers pay or direct the custodian of the school 
moneys to pay monthly a statutory percentage of their 
salaries. 

3. A compulsory fund to which, therefore, every teacher 
contributes and to whose benefits every one is entitled. 

4. The State, county, or municipal pension,^ payable out 
of the taxes. This constitutes a true civil service retire- 
ment pension. It is well-deserved half-pay. 

The argument for pensions cannot be stated in full here ; 
pensions do not come as a matter of argument.^ The old- 
age pension for teachers as for firemen, police, soldiers, and 
sailors is mainly a matter of sentiment, partly a matter of 
intuition and partly of pure experience. — At the present 
time, the large city that does not pay pensions must pay 
many full salaries that are little better than annuities. 
For myself, I will never recommend the discharge of 
teachers invalided for any cause whatever; just as I 
would never, of my own free will, "dock" the salary 
of a teacher for illness, no matter how long that illness 
continues. 

The notion seems generally to prevail that the pension 
should be one-half of the salary of the teacher, but that it 
should not exceed some stated maximum.^ The amount 
must depend mainly upon local conditions ; but I do not 
know of any large city in America where the pension can 
decently be less to any one than ^600 a year. 

The constitution of the retiring board is an important 
matter. This board should not exceed seven members. 

1 This strictly public pension is thoroughly established in the States of New Jersey, of 
Maryland, and of Ohio. 

2 Vide Tupper, The Retirement Fund (Journal of Education). Also, Appendix I, infra. 
8 In New Jersey, with its compulsory pension fund and with its municipal pensions also, 

a teacher who fulfils certain conditions may get two pensions. 



190 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

When composed of five members, it should include the 
superintendent of schools, the president of the board of 
education, the officer who is treasurer of the fund, and two 
representatives of the teachers, elected by them. 

For the municipal pension, retirement should be manda- 
tory upon the application of the teacher, the certificate of 
the attending physician as to invalidism, and the certificate 
of the superintendent of schools as to length of service. 
The tax assessors, the taxing body, and all financial officers 
should be required to provide sufficient funds annually to 
meet all such needs as, and not a/;ter, they arise. This is 
one more reason why funds must be raised by or supplied 
to the school authorities in btnip, and not in specific items. 

In the transformation of the occupation of teaching into 
the profession of education, the progressive schoolman 
meets both more support and also more opposition in the 
large city than in the open country districts. This mani- 
fests itself notably in the matter of pedagogical and other 
courses of self-improvement for teachers. This movement 
is one of the astonishing signs of the times. It displays 
itself in three general ways : in courses of lectures, weekly 
or fortnightly, upon different subjects by experts ; in 
courses of systematic lectures, of from six to thirty during 
the year ; and in summer institutes or schools, lasting from 
one to six weeks. In large cities, all these may be in 
operation, supplementing the State institutes whose main 
purpose is to help teachers to reach higher view-points and 
thence to take broader views. Sometimes, these courses 
are financed by selling tickets ; sometimes, they are open to 
all persons enrolled as members of the city teachers' asso- 
ciation ; occasionally, they are paid for out of the regular 
school funds. The notable thing is that as salaries increase, 
the expenditure of teachers for self -improvement increases. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 191 

No one who has had experience with the voluntary- 
courses of the teachers, operating through more or less 
spontaneously organized committees, questions that these 
courses develop an enthusiasm for increase of knowledge 
and improvement in skill that are essential to an appre- 
ciation of grade and special subject meeting held by the 
regular school officers. 

It is of much importance that the courses of voluntary 
lectures should not be too narrow in range ; they should 
include economics, sociology, philosophy, foreign literature, 
as well as subjects more immediately "practical." In the 
getting of knowledge, it pays to invest widely. 

That generally State normal schools are better in nearly 
every way than city normal schools is an undeniable and 
regrettable fact. The reverse should be true, if the city 
school is to last.^ This proviso, however, is not necessarily 
to be accepted. There are two associated facts regarding 
the city normal school, or teachers' college, that make it 
dangerous to the welfare of a city school system. First, it 
not merely promotes, it is the instrumentality of, inbreed- 
ing.2 And inbreeding means everything pernicious in the 
life and growth of a school system and of the culture of a 
community.^ It means factionalism, routinism, self-satis- 
faction. Second, the city normal school means low salaries 
for the teachers because it insures a large and, therefore, 
cheap supply of young teachers. Of course, it is possible 
somewhat to offset this tendency by having a fine, high- 
salaried normal school staff and a principal and a board 
of examiners with consciences, who will insist upon 

1 Vide also Our Schools, page 196. 

2 Almost always there is a rule of the board to take no outsiders until every normal school 
graduate has been placed on the pay-roll. 

^ Vide, where it is shown that inbreeding for several generations destroys the stock, Der 
Einfluss (Feer), cited Appendix I, 9, infra. 



192 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

satisfactory performance of work before issuing the di- 
ploma of graduation and the certificate to teach.^ 

Much of the severe criticism, however, that is visited 
upon the city normal school is equally deserved by the State 
school. The fact is that the course is too short. Unques- 
tionably, we must build stage by stage. At first, we let 
any one teach; then we ask for high school graduates; 
next, for those who are both high and normal school grad- 
uates; now we are asking for four-year combined col- 
legiate and normal courses ; ^ nor will we stop until 
teachers are as well prepared as are ministers, lawyers, 
and physicians.^ Meanwhile, we are urging our teachers 
to study education in summer schools systematically year 
after year. We are professionalizing theology, law, medi- 
cine, and education together when we make entrance 
upon these professions conditional upon (a) high school 
graduation, {d) a college course or its equivalent, (c) and 
a professional course.* 

I am fully prepared to concede that in the present economic regime, 
there must be some financial support of apprentice teachers if the course 
is to be so greatly extended.^ In return for this half-pay, the cadets 
can do some teaching ; but this should be only incidental.^ 

1 Such a condition as that of the Lowell City Normal School is unique. There no one 
enters the school who is not already a graduate of a State normal school or of a college. 

- This is really the so-called " Teachers' College " plan, a decided step in advance. 

^"Official" note relating to Hon. John Doe, M.C. (verbatim), "He taught school 
three years, but, being ambitious, studied law in the evenings and so prepared himself for a 
profession." 

* A graduate of the Harvard Medical School has completed an eight- or nine-year ele- 
mentary course, a four-year high school course, a four-year college course, and a four-year 
medical course. If he has done well, he then has two years experience as hospital interne. 
It is a tremendous preparation for the cure of bodies: do we need less for the nurture of souls ? 

s It will be much harder to professionalize education than law, theology, or medicine for 
several reasons: i. We need, and we know that we need, Soo,ooo educators now. [Hlotives, 
Ideals, and Values, page 172.) Can the population actually produce such a number of per- 
sons potentially competent to be developed into educators.' There is authority for the opinion 
that we can and do produce such a number. (y^axA, Applied Sociology.') 2. Instead of these, 
we have now some 500,000, of whom we can fairly say that 300,000 are in no proper sense 
educators or teachers in fact or in intention. They constitute a powerful resistance to the 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 193 

The most serious question for the city normal school is 
its practice work. We have all extremes : from the schools 
that have almost no academic instruction to schools that 
have almost no model or practice work. The true plan 
provides for some practice, as occasional substituting for 
a half-day, in the first half-year, and all-day practice for 
weeks at a time in the care of a critic-teacher toward the 
end of the course. This involves, first, a large number of - 
practice classes extending to school buildings in all parts 
of the city; second, a corresponding number of critic- 
teachers ; and third, a flexible and generous mode of 
organization for the school. 

It may be asked which extreme is better, — too much 
practice or too much academic instruction. To this, from 
personal experience of both extremes, I unhesitatingly 
answer : the' latter. At first, the well-trained teacher does 
far better ; but in the course of years, the larger informa- 
tion of the teacher who ha^ had a broad academic course 
saves him or her from the monotonous routinism, the crass 
conceit, and the general hopelessness of the teacher who 
was only trained and not educated. Forever the law : — 
knowledge is greater than efficiency, and efficiency than 
morality; for the ignorant cannot be efficient, and the 
inefficient cannot be good.^ 

Most of the large cities of America have colleges, uni- 
versities, scientific institutions, and libraries. The school 
authorities should encourage at least one of these institu- 
tions to open extension courses, even teachers' colleges, and 

movement for professionalization. 3. One-tenth of all American men are engaged to-day in 
the transportation of the persons and goods of civilization. One-fiftieth of all American men 
and women are needed for the education of the two-fifths of the entire population who are " of 
school age," five to twenty-one years old. Professionalizing teachers means raising their pay 
and thereby increasing their number. Can we develop a popular opinion to sustain this 
movement ? " Ou-y Schools, page 367. 

1 Chapter XI, Motives, Ideals, and Values. 



194 



OUR CITY SCHOOLS 



post-graduate schools until such time as the public treasury- 
will sustain their cost, either directly or by subsidizing the 
institution when it needs funds (as is universally the case). 

These limitations are merely tentative. I incline to the opinion that 
a great civilization needs the independent as well as universal school; 
and I do not see how the independence of the school can be secured 
except by creating for it adequate endowment by private benefaction 
and public grant.^ 

There is an institution for the development of the pro- 
fessional spirit and for the building of the independent, 
self-controlled, and universal school of which I have great 
hopes from trial : I mean a teachers' council. It is not a 
safe institution for a superintendent to create in a com- 
munity in which he is a stranger. No plan yet suggested 
to me appears to be everywhere useful. But I am confi- 
dent of the value of the principle upon which it is based. 
This principle is that the progress of education depends 
upon its internal life. The council is simply to embody 
that life, to give it form, to acknowledge it publicly. 

I have tried four plans : — 

1. A council of eleven members, each selected by the 
superintendent. 

2. A council of twelve members chosen as follows : the 
superintendent selects the first, these two the second, these 
three the third, these four the fourth, etc. No selection 
takes place within a fortnight of the preceding selection. 

3. An unlimited council, meeting fortnightly for con- 
ference at a " round table." 

4. A council of delegates chosen by various bodies of 
teachers : so many to represent high schools, so many for 
grammar grades, so many for kindergartens, so many for 
special teachers, etc. 

1 Motives, page 43. Also note, Appendix A, infra. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 195 

Each of these plans has its peculiar value. The pur- 
poses of such a council may be specifically stated in these 
terms, viz. : — 

1. To present vigorously and constantly to the superin- 
tendent of schools the opinions, the interests, and the needs 
of practical working class teachers. 

2. To canvass measures before issuing orders. 

3. To give the teachers a voice through permanent and 
recognized representatives. 

4. To publish the fact that the direction of education is 
properly vested in educators. 

5. To overcome the bureaucratic tendencies of the 
higher officers. 

This institution of a teachers' council is worth consider- 
ing in the light of those famous political measures, ■ — the 
initiative, the referendum, and the recall to supplement 
elected representatives, and the other familiar established 
methods of modern democracy in America. 

In the event of a vacancy in the superintendency, this 
council should inform itself as to the best available men, 
local and national, for that office ; and in a dignified man- 
ner give its opinions to the board of education. 

Every meeting of the council should be absolutely 
confidential, and nothing should be reported of its pro- 
ceedings except by direction of the council through the 
secretary. 

Here it is proper to discuss an important question aris- 
ing almost daily in every large school system : a teacher 
has a grievance, her immediate superior will not or cannot 
ameliorate it, and she (seldom he) grows restive. What 
shall she do .■' She writes out her complaint, she starts it 
forward through " proper channels " (that is, via principal, 
district superintendent, and assistant superintendent) to the 



196 OUR CITY SCHOOLS 

superintendent, but it seems to fail to reach him. She 
does not know any board member and considers it disloyal 
to the profession to make complaints to a layman. And 
now what shall she do? Has she the right to jump over 
her superiors and to appeal directly to the superintendent ? 
He has very little time and no eagerness for such matters. 
In a large city, many such complaints to him are symp- 
tomatic of a serious disease.^ Here, it seems to me, is one 
service that a teachers' council can render. It can investi- 
gate the complaint and report it only when justified. 

The principle of appeal to the head is inviolate. After 
waiting a reasonable time, teachers owe it to themselves 
and to the school system to make a direct complaint in 
writing and to ask for an appointment to see the superin- 
tendent. Do I need to add — I fear so — that it is decid- 
edly the business of the superintendent to do all that he 
can at once to settle the matter and to prevent its recur- 
rence .'' In such a case, there should be a record in his 
official diary with a note as to the files. 

Some complaints prove profitable for reflection. 

In the creation of the professional spirit, one element 
is absolutely necessary — the element of loyalty ; but in a 
large school, at present, it is almost impossible to secure 
and to maintain. Fundamentally, loyalty is personal fealty. 
There is needed loyalty to one's associates, to one's infe- 
riors, to one's superiors, to the community, and to the 
children and youth. 

Loyalty is easy to recognize ; hard to describe and 
harder to define ; hardest for some natures to display. 

It is obedience to the moral law for the sake of persons ; 

1 As superintendent in a city with two separate school systems, I have known periods 
when for weeks, because of official engagements of prior date and of superior importance, 
I have been unable to make any appointment to see complainants. 



CONVERTING OCCUPATION INTO PROFESSION 197 

it is "legality" in the sense of faithfulness. It is the bet- 
ter part of honor, which is recognition of the necessities 
of the situation in which one finds himself — obedience to 
all the requirements of the social milieu. Honor is higher 
than truth-telling. It adds fortitude to courage. The man 
of honor sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not ; ^ 
honor is loyalty and more — it is loyalty at any personal 
cost to the highest interests of society. Loyalty is clear- 
sighted and sympathetic and efficient ; honor is personally 
loyal and faithful, and also far-sighted, charitable, and 
vital as the life-blood itself. To understand and to dis- 
play loyalty and honor is to possess at once the highest 
intelligence, unbalked efficiency, and genuine and generous 
morality — qualities beyond most of us. Yet to develop 
properly a city school system, honor and loyalty must be 
the pattern ideals of every officer and of every teacher. 
Loyalty to all one's fellow-workers, and honor in every re- 
lation of one's service, characterize all the members and 
constitute the ethics of a learned profession. 

To wear professional honor with the habit of the veteran, 
to be trusted as quickly and as safely as physician or 
minister or lawyer may well be the goal of the educator 
in this democratic age of need and of opportunity. 

1 David, Psalm xv, 4. 



APPENDIX A 
OPEN LETTERS 

I 

To Educators Desirous of becoming Superintendents of Schools 

IN Large Cities 
Dear Sirs : — 

At the present time, there are about fifteen hundred State and mu- 
nicipal superintendencies. Some positions so recorded by the United 
States Bureau of Education pay no more than six hundred dollars. Two 
pay ten thousand dollars ; none pay more. Sixty pay at least three 
thousand. When a two-thousand-dollar superintendency is vacant, there 
are at once a hundred candidates. For the three-thousand-dollar posi- 
tion, there are a score of applicants. A five-thousand-dollar superin- 
tendency was offered to and declined by three eligible men before 
being accepted by the fourth ; and he was secured only because the 
committee on nominations suppressed the facts that led the others to 
decline. 

In the course of travels that have extended through forty States dur- 
ing a period of twenty-five years, I have met hundreds of school super- 
intendents and ex-superintendents and thousands of other educators 
who would like to be superintendents. I have received hundreds of 
confidential letters from these educators and from members of boards 
of education. And I have come to certain opinions regarding the per- 
sonal aspects of the problem presented upon other lines in the maiu 
text of this book. 

There are now not quite seven hundred cities of eight thousand and 
more population. In nearly every one of these cities, the control of 
public education is vested in a board of education and is effected 
through a superintendent. (The exceptional places, such as Buffalo 
where there is no board of education but only a superintendent elected 
by the people and Hartford with four boards and four superintendents, 
are too few to affect the general situation. The entire situation in the 

199 . 



200 APPENDIX A 

State of Louisiana is unique.) Seven hundred and fifty other com- 
munities from four to eight thousand population similarly have superin- 
tendents (or " supervising principals ") employed by boards of education. 
More than that number, however, of these small communities "get 
along" educationally vk'ithout superintendents. Until about 1850, all 
the world got along without boards of education, — which were dreamed 
of two thousand years ago by Aristotle, but remained little more than 
a dream until democracy arose with Jackson and the New West in 
America. 

The city is apparently an insoluble problem. Mrs. Partington could 
no more sweep back the sea with her broom than any statesman can 
redeem the city from its destiny, which is to multiply and to bleach 
human lives. 

The superintendency is sought by and does not seek its occupant. 
The physician in good standing never seeks a patient nor does the pro- 
fessional lawyer seek a client. The superintendency is won by com- 
petition. ^ This tends to make the occupation one of rivals and critics. 
The competent is determined by incompetent judges, who have nothing 
personal at stake upon the issue. The centre of gravity is outside of 
the city school system. And the lay judges who selected the superin- 
tendent originally will probably not be the ones to decide upon his 
success or failure in office. 

The city superintendent knows more about his city than does the 
mayor or the chief of police or the oldest inhabitant or all these com- 
bined. He sees it whole and in detail, its good and its evil.^ 

If the ten thousand best informed men of the United States were to 
come together, one thousand of them would probably be members or 
ex-members of the United States Congress, and another thousand 
would be superintendents and ex-superintendents ; and strange as it 
may seem, their average experience in office would be the same, about 
three or four years. More than one-half of our senators and about one- 
half of our representatives serve not more than one term, respectively 
of six years and of two. 

There is a city of over one hundred thousand population now that 
elected its first superintendent in 1854. Since then it has had over 
twenty different superintendents, an average term of three years. A 

^ Vide Chapter XV, " Getting the Office," Our Schools. 
2 Vide Chapters V, "The Superintendent," and XIII, "The Educational 
Policy of the Community," Our Schools. 



OPEN LETTERS 201 

still larger city has had three superintendents within one year, not one 
of these changes being due to death. An impression prevails that 
though a superintendent may serve but two, three, or four years in the 
same community, he can then go elsewhere. This does, of course, 
occur; but with all the progress in this matter, only two-thirds of our 
superintendents upon vacating the first position of this kind get a 
second. And very, very few who have held two superintendencies 
ever get a third. In a certain city recently, there were three ex-super- 
intendents serving as principals, while a fourth was "in business." 

The man who is dismissed or who resigns " under fire " seldom gets 
another superintendency. The land is (it would seem) full of ex-super- 
intendents : they are book agents, real estate operators, storekeepers, 
manufacturers, bank presidents, professors, governors, judges, and con- 
gressmen ; but they are no longer superintendents. 

This is the first fact to face. The town or city superintendency is a 
splendid training — for something, for almost anything, else. 

I know that there are exceptional cases, especially in our largest 
cities. Yet I recall a recent instance of a man who by hard and ambi- 
tious work for over thirty years won the superintendency that he had 
long desired. In eight months he was dead, unquestionably because 
of a political fight that his own election had occasioned, if not caused. 

I recall one man's superintendency in a large city that lasted only a 
year ; it was a year of great accomplishment, so great as to compass his 
own utter ruin as a superintendent. And I recall the superintendency 
of another man lasting fifteen years ; he never accomplished anything 
for education, but swung like a weathercock to every wind. 

This is the second fact to be faced bravely, — that quality of service, 
not length, counts. 

In a certain city, a man served for an even ten years, during which 
by good investments and successful speculations he made a hundred 
thousand dollars. A new board came up out of the city and said, 
" We want an educator, not a business man," and removed him. Less 
than a hundred miles away was another man who knew little about 
money and cared nothing for it. He got into debt — it was for less than 
one hundred dollars in all, and his salary was eighteen hundred. But 
in his fourth year of fine service, the members of his board quarrelled 
over that debt, and he resigned on account of its publicity. 

This is the third fact with two phases. What suits one community 
angers another; and boards change like kaleidoscopes. One man 



202 APPENDIX A 

" loses out " because he is a " book-worm," and another because he is 
an "athlete." A certain board removed a hitherto bachelor superin- 
tendent because he married a teacher ; in the same year, another board 
removed a superintendent who was a widower with three children 
because he married a widow with other three children ; but in a town just 
across the State line from these two communities, the board voted not to 
employ any unmarried man as superintendent or as building principal. 

Another confusing illustration occurs. I knew one board to refuse 
to consider a man with the doctorate of philosophy from a fine 
university; he was "too erudite." Twenty miles away, a candidate, 
with the best possible experience and actually in office elsewhere at the 
salary of the vacant superintendency, was thrown out solely because he 
had done no postgraduate work. 

Unless in office elsewhere, it is almost impossible to secure a really 
important city superintendency ; yet I have seen the letter of a board 
secretary with these sentences : " The committee feels that after 
twenty years of continuous service in public office, you must be in need 
of a year of rest. In view of this fact, I am directed to return your 
application." I knew one city to refuse to elect a man who had 
written some books, — and for that reason. And I knew another city to 
elect a man solely because he had a substantial income from his books. 
Verily, " the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth." 

School superintendents are on the skirmish-line of the forward 
movement in education ; the research workers of the universities are 
the commissary department, and the masters of the normal schools 
are the recruiting sergeants ; the class teachers are the army itself. 
The educationalists are urgiitg progress. The siiperi7itendents move 
forward as the leaders, aitd are shot to pieces. 

Such is democracy as it builds the School. 

Yet the experience of being removed is not regretted by all ex-super- 
intendents. They have often learned the due relation and sequence 
between honesty and generosity, justice and mercy, honor and tact, 
patriotism and friendship, aim and policy, morals and decency. 

Out of experience, I ask of you who desire to control in your day 
some large city these questions, viz. : — 

I . Can you keep peace with yourself, though knowing that you are 
not doing and cannot do one-hundredth of the things that need 
doing ? 



OPEN LETTERS 203 

2. Can you rise up and go to bed, knowing that you cannot know 
what a day or a. night may bring forth, but knowing also with cer- 
tainty that soon or late the end of office cometh? Superintendents 
do not die of old age in office. 

3. Can you fear neither victory nor defeat, for victory is worse than 
defeat in that it makes the target ever more prominent? Can the 
fear of not doing your duty drive out every other fear ? 

4. Can you rest merely by varying your work ? For if you play 
golf or drive horses or read books or attend the theatre or go to 
parties, all the world will know it. Long vacations are impossible- 
Some members of the board are always at one end of the telephone. 

5. Can you be affable, yet tell nothing.? A thousand or ten thou- 
sand teachers are eager to know your thoughts ; and every newspaper 
is ready to give you a column. 

6. Can you appear progressive without being so, and equally can 
you be progressive without appearing so ? 

7. Can you conceal the fact that you are doing an enormous amount 
of work? For one reason the teachers, and for another reason the 
board members, are timid about men who are seen, or even suspected, 
to work hard. 

8. Are you willing to earn at least for two, three, seven, perhaps ten, 
years (say) $4000 or $6000 a year, and then to drop out with no sav- 
ings (or else with no children) to earn $1200 or $1500 in teaching, or 
(say) $3000 in business? That has been the fate of most persons 
who have been successful in this ambition to be city school superinten- 
dents. 

9. Do you really love people? Do you love them so much that you 
can be happy in the day when some one of " the people " comes to you, 
and in substantial ignorance of yourself, of education, and of the needs 
of the city, and says, " We want a new man." On your forehead will be 
set the brand "REJECTED OF MEN,"i not to be forgotten even 
though you get another superintendency. One of the successful superin- 
tendents of recent years in his present position spends a considerable 
part of his time explaining his failure (?) in a former position. This 
failure consisted In doing his duty in matters of right and wrong, and 
thereby losing votes. 

1 Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Herbart, and Horace Mann all wore that 
brand. Only the transgressor, whose " way is hard," is remembered in educa- 
tional history. However, not every failure is a worth-while reformer. 



204 APPENDIX A 

10. Have you carefully inquired into the history of the American 
city superintendency ? 

In June, 1837, in the Common School Journal, edited by Horace 
Mann, Boston, there appeared an advertisement for a school superin- 
tendent in the city of Providence. About that time, Buffalo and Louis- 
ville also elected superintendents. Except in Buffalo, which has no 
board of education, these officers, however, were both superintendents 
of schools and clerks to the board, — a combination not unknown even 
yet in large cities, and quite common in small cities and towns. Not 
until 1850, in Boston, were the duties of supervision magnified as of 
greater importance than the clerical ser\'ices. Even to-day, in many 
cities, the superintendent, if not merely a clerk, is at least no more than 
the agent of the will of the board. 

In 1837, Massachusetts appointed a secretary to the State Board of 
Education ; to this day, there is no State superintendent or director of 
education. Public opinion, however, has required the secretary to be 
an educator in fact. Most of the other States have superintendents — 
by popular election. Here, again, public opinion runs ahead of the law ; 
and this political office is usually filled by an educator. Unfortunately, 
this cannot be said so strongly of the county superintendents of most 
States. 

Teachers have tenure or contracts ; most superintendents have terms 
of office. Even for the term, the tenure is not certain. Almost alone 
of office-holders, superintendents have critics of higher political au- 
thority and legal control daily, hourly, at their side. Removal during 
the school year is not uncommon. 

In the light of this history, in the presence of this opportunity, do 
you really desire a superintendency ? 

11. Can you endure seeing experienced teachers, young teachers, 
applicants, blackmailed for money by politicians in league with board 
members? You may see that. You may see repeated an actual court 
decision that such board members are "irremovable and unimpeach- 
able upon the evidence of an employee." Can you endure in silence 
the knowledge of the waste of public money in overpriced real estate, 
in poorly constructed buildings, in ancient text-books, in petty con- 
tracts? To denounce " graft " is to insure being called "liar"; that is 
the only possible reply. Can you endure seeing the work of years of 
school progress undone in a day by amateurs on the board ? Can you 
endure virulent newspaper abuse? That is the common lot of pro- 



OPEN LETTERS 205 

gressive superintendents when kept in office by clean and competent 
boards. Can you endure attacks, open and covert, by persons whom 
you yourself have placed in " good positions " ? Can you so endure, 
though knowing that not even endurance insures continuance in office, 
— may even cause prompt removal in the hour of public awakening? 

Strange as it may sound, your problem of preparation for the super- 
intendency, getting the office and staying in it, is not nearly so serious 
as our national problem of how to get boards of education anxious to 
secure good men as superintendents, and to support them ; or else how 
to control schools with no boards at all. 

Very sincerely, 

The Author. 
II 

To Members of Boards of Education and to Candidates for Board 

Membership 
Dear Sirs: — 

The history of the rise and extension of boards of education is one 
that should be both an encouragement and a warning to members. 
A good board is a bulwark to a good school system. A bad board is a 
torment. A good member is a business man, who cares for the finan- 
cial support of the schools. A bad member is a pseudo- educator, who 
usurps the direction of professional matters. The meaning of these 
words " good " and " bad " will appear more fully upon a consideration 
of the causes that led to the establishment of the first boards and to the 
increase of the powers of boards as the years have passed. 

In the early years of the nineteenth century, the control of schools 
was of necessity in the towns themselves because they had originated 
and were extending them. The rulers of the larger towns were the 
"selectmen," and often as adviser they took a clergyman, of whom 
many towns had but one. Church and State, religion and government, 
though separated in theory, were associated in practice ; and the clergy- 
man would choose usually for schoolmaster some clergyman out of a 
position or a student of divinity. At this period, lawyers were few, 
physicians were then, as now, perhaps twice as numerous, but nearly all 
educated or " learned " men were clergymen. Gradually, laymen were 
associated with the clergy in this duty of " visiting " the town school 
and of choosing the teachers. To this day, in New England, boards of 
education are by name " school committees " and in theory delegates 



206 APPENDIX A 

from town-meeting or assistants of the selectmen in taking charge of the 
schools. And also in theory the members are the best educated men 
of the community, those who may most safely be trusted with the direc- 
tion of the education of youth. 

The making of the board of education into a separate corporation 
with a seal of its own, often with the power to tax and to bond the 
community for funds for school uses, was an application to public educa- 
tion of the theories and practices of Roman law. In the later days of 
Roman empire, civilization had become complex and society had con- 
structed several social institutions requiring recognition of their individ- 
ual needs. The corporation was a Roman legal invention to meet 
these requirements. 

As the municipal boards of education extended southward into the 
States that had been more influenced by the Roman law than those of 
the North, various changes took place in their powers. An examination 
of all the State laws to-day, of all the State constitutions, and of all the 
municipal ordinances reveals the most astonishing diversity of condi- 
tions. For example, in many States, the State Boards of Education are 
but boards of examiners for licenses as teachers. This is in appearance 
at least a survival of the examination of the schoolmaster by the minister. 

From the situation in the earliest days, when the town-meeting elected 
the schoolmaster quite as naturally as it elected its own moderator, fixed 
his compensation, and determined courses of study, to the present situa- 
tion in the most advanced communities, is a long journey. 

In Dorchester, Mass., in March, 1645, the town-meeting ordered that 
•*' Three able and sufficient men of the plantation be chosen to be wardens 
or overseers of the school who shall have charge, oversight, and ordering 
thereof and of all things concerning it . . . and shall continue in their 
office and place for the term of their lives." Under the title of " Presi- 
dent and Directors of the Literary Fund," North Carolina created in 
1825 what was probably the first State Board of Education. In 1835, 
Missouri created a " State Board of Education," apparently the first 
with that title. The earliest of these State Boards managed and 
invested funds, sold the lands allotted to public education, and in 
general were business institutions. As early as 1824, Missouri had 
civil commissioners of schools who appointed local school "visitors." 
These officers inspected the schools, examined the teachers, and super- 
vised instruction in their districts. In 1866, the National Bureau of 
Education was created. 



OPEN LETTERS 



207 



To this day, no other nation has local school boards generally,^ 
though they are growing in number now in England. A few States 
have no State school boards. Wherever there are State or local 
school boards, their history has been of decline in the quality of mem- 
bership in respect to education and culture. Now it is rare for an 
entire board or even for the majority of a board to consist of men as > 
well educated as the clergymen and lawyers who alone were considered v 
fit for membership in the early days.^ ,>, 

I have indicated in only the barest outlines the history of school boards. ."' 
No ma7i is fit to serve on any board who is not both competent to under- '^ 
stand and desirous of knowing the general progress of Ainerican edu- 
cation as displayed in such authoritative books as Dexter's History of 
Education in the United States, Brown's Making of our Middle Schools^ 
and Thwing's History of Higher Education?' Yet these two standards 
would immediately disqualify nineteen out of twenty, perhaps ninety- 
nine out of a hundred, of board members. When the American demo- 
cratic State undertook to deliver education from its threefold misfortunes 
of a hundred years ago, neglect due to popular ignorance, private 
money-making, and ecclesiastical control, — it proposed to turn the 
public school over not to " anybody," that is, the average man, but to 
disinterested, humanitarian culture. 

You are serving in the most important of all educational positions. 
One good member upon a board can do more for the cause of education 
than the superintendent himself. He creates a standard for all others. 

This open letter is the outcome of a letter that I received several 
years ago ; in it, this question was propounded : " I have just been 
appointed a member of the board of education in this city. I am not 

1 In 1 8 10, in Germany, the philosopher Herbart said that the school could 
never do its proper work' under even expert ministerial control, but must be 
self-active and self-determining. Vide Herbart, Verhaltniss der Schule zum 
Leben. My oWb hope is that endowed schools of every grade will be increased 
and that the funds will be vested in the faculties. Vide Motives, p. 129. 

2 Said Herbert Spencer in Educatio7i, " The subject that involves all other 
subjects, and therefore the subject in which the education of everyone should 
culminate, is the theory and practice of education." And yet persons not 
important enough properly to be styled even " business men " (capitalist- 
employers) undertake often to direct the education of great communities. 

^ Vide Chapters II, "The Board of Education," and XIV, "Education for 
Supervision," Our Schools. Also note, page 14, supra. 



208 APPENDIX A 

even a graduate of the high school, though I attended it for nearly two 
years. Will you not let me know of some good book on the subject of 
the duties of board members ? " 

This inquiry seemed to me remarkable. It is the only one of its 
kind that I ever received. I have never heard any other educator to 
whom a similar inquiry had been addressed in writing or orally. No 
board member in my experience has so much as suggested to me that 
he needed any extensive preparation. Occasionally a question as to 
specific facts has been asked ; but equipped with an answer, the typical 
board member is ready for any and all discussion, which he promptly 
meets with a decisive "yes" or "no." 

No man who is informed as to actual conditions doubts that we are 
soon to choose between these courses : — 

1 . Omission of boards from the machinery of school control.^ 

2. Return to private and endowed and parochial schools as the 
standard means of education. 

3. Enforcement of cultural requirements for membership upon 
boards. 

It has become clear that for a time after a board has been reduced 
in size and a new small board has been substituted, affairs go better ; 
but two forces work against the permanence of the better spirit. As 
the new members become experienced in school affairs, they become the 
victims of the confidence of empiricism. Moreover, though at first the 
members are selected with care, later public interest dies out, and 
the quality of membership declines. A small board of poor quality is 
worse than a large board ; democracy itself is important evidence that 
" there is safety in numbers." 

The notion prevailing in some quarters that board members have 
a genuine right to control the schools because they are parents, 
involves a postulate that parents know more about edtccation than 
the educators know. This raises three other questions, i. Do they? 

1 There are several ways to provide machinery for the election of an educational director. 
One is to establish in the corps of teachers a properly qualified house of delegates, with 
power to elect the leader or superintendent. Another is to elect him by popular vote of all 
citizens at a special school election. A third is to have municipal superintendents appointed 
by the State superintendent. No doubt these propositions are all unpopular with most of the 
persons who happen to be superintendents now. They mean changes. The first and third 
of the foregoing plans bring the center of gravity within the profession. The second is pure 
democracy. 



OPEN LETTERS 209 

2. Are board members parents? 3. Are superintendents not par- 
ents ? ^ 

But to return to the question of the board member for systematic and 
competent information, — It can no more be put into a handbook than 
can American law or medicine or theology. A dollar copy of " every 
man his own lawyer " is likely to cost a good many thousand dollars, 
if trusted ; one who is one's own physician is a poor medical risk. '. 
What, then, is the board member to do ? Either study education or j 
follow implicitly the advice of the head of the school system. 

" Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what com- ( 
munion hath light with darkness ? " wrote Saint Paul. " No man can 
serve two masters," said Jesus. Either the board or the superintendent 
must be supreme in the schools. "Unless a superintendent gives over 
all ideas of jealousy and superiority, and works entirely with the board 
of education, no school system can progress," was said by a speaker at 
a recent meeting of the Department of Superintendence of the N. E. A. 
{Journal of Education, Mar. 12, 1908.) But who is to decide what 
progress is ? The harmony proposed is the harmony of Roman citizen 
and Greek philosopher, that is, of master and slave. The doctrine is a 
defense of lay-usurpation. It sets the pseudo-educator above the 
real. 

In office, it will be profitable for the schools that you remember how 
in the law the appeal is ever to higher lawyers. The final court of 
appeals consists of the judges who are most learned in the law. But in 
education, it is to you. And the teachers, the supervisors, and your 
polite but discreetly silent neighbors hope that you take the appeal in a 
Pickwickian sense, with that becoming modesty and deference which you 
expect others to display respecting matters of your own proper business. 

Do not hold supervisors and teachers in contempt. Do not class 
them all by their least name "teachers." Do not confuse political 
authority with personal superiority. You do not wish the new gener- 
ation to be the educational product of inferiors. 

The Dorchester school wardens were elected for life. Dorchester 
town-meeting saw that overseeing schools is a life-work. 

Very sincerely, 

The Author. 

1 At least one-third of all teachers should be parents. Vide Bfotwes,Ideals and Values., 
pages 170-172. This, not making persons educational directors such qtta parents, is the true 
professional solution of home and school. 



APPENDIX B 

THE ANNUAL REPORT 

A COMPARISON of a dozen school reports from as many different 
cities for the same year shows an astonishing diversity of contents. 
Similarly, a comparison of the reports of a half-dozen successive super- 
intendents in the same city shows an almost equal diversity. In 
itself, diversity is not undesirable ; but in this instance, it covers 
the range not only of the good but also of the useless and the 
poor. Such diversity as is due to fundamental differences in State 
constitutions and statutes is almost an integral feature of American 
federalism. 

On the other hand, the mere diversity of caprice is undesirable ; 
it prevents comparison and planning for improvement based upon 
fmitful suggestions. 

In general, there is an indifference about school statistics, including 
those of school finance, that indicates two things : the minor, the 
ultimate, place of the school department, and the low salaries of the 
reporting and accounting clerks. 

There is also an indifference in their substance that indicates a belief 
that they will not be read. This is probably true ; but the poor con- 
tent value and the poor literary quality of these reports tend to cause 
the public indifference to them. 

In even minor matters, there are strange lapses. Sometimes, the 
names of the community and State, the date, the period covered in the 
report, and the titles of the persons reporting are omitted. Often, no 
report is printed for several years. Paper, type, ink, and binding usually 
indicate parsimony and ignorance. 

The following statistical plan corresponds closely with that recom- 
mended by the National Educational Association. 

It has been suggested frequently that many statistics be carried for 
ten years and then by decades as far back as records go, e.g. school 
attendance of pupils. 

2IO 



THE ANNUAL REPORT 211 

1908 . . . (say) 100,000 1900 75,000 

1907 . . . . . 97,000 1899 73,000 

1906 , . . . . 94,000 1890 ..... 63,000 

1905 ..... go,ooo 1880 ... . . . SS,°°o 

1904 87,000 1870 . . . . . 47,000 

1903 84,000 i860 39,000 

1902 81,000 1850 . . . . . 30,000 

1901 78,000 etc. 

Similarly, value of buildings, cost of sites, annual revenues, annual 
expenditures, etc. 

REPORT OF SCHOOL RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES 
OF CITY (OR SCHOOL DISTRICT OR SCHOOL COJl- 
PORATION) 

of for the year ending 190-- 

(i) Estimated actual value of all property in the city (or school 

district or corporation) $ 

(2) Assessed valuation of all property in city (or school district 

or corporation) 

(3) Rate of school tax levied on each dollar of assessed valua- 

ti on of city (school district or corporation) . . . 



Receipts 

(4) Received from State apportionment or taxes ... 

(5) Received from county apportionment or taxes 

(6) Received from city (or school district or corporation) taxes 

(7) Received from fines, licenses, penalties, etc. . 

(8) Received from all other sources except loans and bond sales 

(Speciiy different sources.) 

(9) Received from loans 

(10) Received from bond sales 

(11) Total receipts, all sources 

Expenditures 

(12) Paid for salaries of teachers and supervisors . 

(13) Paid for current expenses, excluding interest, 

Salaries of officers 

Salaries of janitors 

Fuel and lights 

Text-books, including drawing- and copy-books 
Stationery . 



212 APPENDIX B 

Expenditures — Cotitinued 

(13) Paid for current expenses, excluding interest — Continued 

Other school supplies 

Ordinary repairs to buildings, etc 

All other items of current expense. (Specify items.) . 

(14) Paid for sites 

(15) Paid for additions and new buildings .... 

(16) Paid for permanent furnishings and furniture 

(17) Paid for permanent equipment for manual training, science, 

laboratories, etc 

(18) Paid for reference and library books 

(19) Paid for all other permanent improvements such as grading, 

paving, etc. (Specify different expenditures.) 

(20) Paid for interest 

(21) Paid on principal of loans 

(22) Paid on principal of bonded debt . 

(23) Total paid out, all purposes . 

(24) Cash on hand at beginning of year 

(25) Cash on hand at beginning of year in fund for sites and 

buildings. (Included in 24.) 

(26) Cash on hand at beginning ofyear in sinking fund. (Included 

in 24.) 

(27) Warrants outstanding at beginning of year 

(28) Cash on hand at end of year . 

(29) Cash on hand at end of year in fund for sites and buildings, 

(Included in 28.) 

(30) Cash on hand at end of year in sinking fund. (Included 

in 28.) 

(31) Warrants outstanding at end of year .... 

(32) Paid current expenses, evening schools. (Included in 12 

I3-) 

(33) P^i'^ current expenses, teachers' training schools. (Included 

in 12-13.) 

(34) Paid current expenses, schools for defectives or other special 

schools. (Included in 12-13. Specify different schools.) 

(35) Bonded school debt of city (or school district or corporation) 

at end of year 

(36) Population of city (or school district or corporation) 

(37) Persons of school age, to years, in city 

(or school district or corporation) 

(38) Number of pupils enrolled, all schools 

(39) Average number in daily membership, all schools . 

(40) Average number in daily attendance, all schools . 

(41) Average number in daily attendance, night schools. (In- 

cluded in 40.) 



THE ANNUAL REPORT 213 



Expenditures — Continued 

(42) Average number in daily attendance, teachers' training 

schools. (Included in 40.) 

(43) Average number in daily attendance. Schools for defectives 

or other special schools. (Included in 40. Specify dif- 
ferent schools.) 

(44) Annual cost of education per pupil. (Sum of nos. 12 and 13 

divided by no. 40.) 



Illustrations 

There will be little or no architectural progress in any community 
that does not care enough about its school buildings to advertise the 
good things that it is doing in school buildings and grounds by illus- 
trating its reports with pictures. Still better, though unpleasant, is it to 
show side by side the desirable new and the undesirable old. Let it be 
shown graphically that it is unfair to give the 1000 children of a poor 
neighborhood a yard 40' x 100' (I know much smaller ones) while giv- 
ing the 300 children of a wealthy neighborhood a yard 200' x 300' 
(some, I am glad to say, are even larger). The contrast wakes up the 
attention and the will. Illustrate anything and everything that has a 
meaning for progress, — book collections, decorated walls, sanitary appli- 
ances, ventilation fans, front entrances, undesirable buildings near by, 
and the pupils themselves. Let us appeal to pride and to sympathy. 

But in so doing let us not blind our constituencies with undue praise. 
Three superintendents in communities, each over a thousand miles from 
both of the others, in their annual reports for 1906-7, lay claim to 
having " the best schools in the country." The provincial who says 
this may make political capital thereby with other provincials, but he is 
delaying progress. There is demonstrably no "best school"; but 
every good school is so keen to see its own faults as to seem to itself 
only tolerable. 



APPENDIX C 

It is undeniably the American national policy to claim " prosperity " 
and to ignore "poverty." The city school superintendent knows that 
there is warrant for such an article as that which follows. I have seen 
the same condition in the National Capital itself. 

"I. GOTHAM SCHOOL CHILDREN 
"Boys and Girls suffer for Food and Proper Clothing 

" NEW YORK, February 6. — Mrs. Jennie M. Tower, principal of Public School 
No. 114, at No. 73 Oliver Street, wept for ten minutes yesterday noon as she 
watched two lines of pupils in her school being provided by private charity with 
milk and bread to keep them fi-om fainting at their desks through cold and hunger. 
The little girls of the school were fed with hot milk. The boys received two slices 
of bread. The donation came from a woman who had learned of conditions at 
the school, but did not wish her name to be made known. 

" I used to wonder," said Mrs. Tower, "why so many of the children never 
went home at noontime. I asked them why they did not go and get some lunch. 

" ' What's the use ? ' " was the answer I generally received. 

" Then I realized that scores of the little children knew that the pantry at home 
was empty. I learned, too, that many of the children did not even have any 
breakfast before they came to school. It made my heart break. 

Many come to School Hungry 

" I have given up sending for aid to charity societies," added Mrs. Tower. " I 
have about 800 children in this school, and I find that the societies, when applied 
to, often try to separate the families that are in want. It does not seem to me that 
appeals bringing about such a result as that are kind. 

" I have never dared determine definitely what proportion of the children here 
are in destitute circumstances. They are doing splendid work in the school, and 
yet I know that a great many of them are utterly unfitted through want to take up 
the work outlined for them. Many of them come to school hungry and go all day 
without a bite to eat. 

" Like little Spartans, they refuse to complain until they faint at their work. 
Even then they hate to admit that they are not being properly fed. Many nation- 
alities are joined in this school, but all have a sense of pride which prevents their 
mentioning their troubles. 

214 



APPENDIX C 215 

Calico in Zero Weather 

" There has been one little girl who has come to school through the bitterest 
weather with simply a little calico dress. She has no coat of any kind. This 
afternoon one of the teachers came to me and asked if she could send out and get 
a warm shirt for a little boy in her class who has won distinction because of his 
brightness. 

" Many of our children hate to see the school close for the day. Their parents 
are out at work and the fires in their homes are extinguished. Throughout the 
late hours of the afternoon the children have no place to go where they can keep 
warm. 

" Lack of food is the greatest cause of distress, however. Sometimes children 
faint in their classes, and are resuscitated through food which the teachers send out 
for and get. I think the plan proposed by Superintendent Maxwell, of having the 
city supply lunches in case of need, is a splendid idea. I believe there is not the 
least danger of its being abused, for, as I have said, the children all have a keen 
sense of pride and would prefer to go to their homes if they knew they could se- 
cure food there." — The Star, Washington, D.C., Feb. 6, 1908. 

2. A CHILD'S PRIDE 

The following incident occurred in one of my own schools and was immediately 
reported to me and verified. 

Amanda B. was a girl of seven, delicate, with staring blue eyes, serious and in- 
dustrious. She did not go home from school at noon : said it was " too far to 
walk." (It was three blocks.) Her teacher also stayed at noon. But Amanda 
would always go away and sit in a dark corner with a little basket and red napkin. 
She seemed to be eating always a sandwich and an egg ; but if any one came near, 
she quickly put them under the napkin. Nearly a month passed before by accident 
the teacher discovered the contents of the basket, — a round stone and carefully 
folded brown paper. 

The child's father was ill, the mother worked out all day. But Amanda saw the 
point and played her part bravely. 

All this is now years past. Everything turned out well. Charity is not dead. 
But there are now other little heroines equally in need. 



APPENDIX D 
FORMS 

Appended to the main text of Our Schools : their Administration 
and Supervision, there are nearly fifty forms, of which perhaps the 
most important is that of a report of scholarship, attendance, and 
conduct substantially in accordance with the main text of the present 
book.i The forms that follow are additions to those published in the 
earlier work. 

It is impracticable not only to print all the forms used by so great 
a city as New York in carrying on its school affairs, but also to print 
examples of the kinds used in each of the several branches of the 
school department. 

A careful study of the entire system of forms used in the great cities 
shows how radically the powers of boards and of superintendents and 
their methods vary. A system applicable to one city is legally inappli- 
cable, at least in part, in nearly every other. To say that one system 
is preferable to another would be to draw an unnecessarily invidious 
distinction ; several cities have either notably good systems, complete 
and admirably calculated to effect the purposes in view or notably 
good special features. Every superintendent and every student of 
American school administration will profit by examining the forms of 
the city of New York ; but having done so, there will be good reason 
to review also those of Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas 
City, Indianapolis, and Newark. Perhaps equally useful would be the 
results of time spent in looking into the forms of Milwaukee, Worces- 
ter, Cleveland, Lowell, St. Joseph, Wilmington, Holyoke, Wilkes- 
barre, Rochester, Boston, Pittsburg, Syracuse, and Nashville. I have 
gone over more than two thousand forms with profit to myself. Certain 
other cities have valuable forms ; but I have not been able to review 
them. It is, however, proper for me to say that a few cities with good 
schools seem to pay but little attention to this business aspect of school 
control. 

* Vide p. 155, supra. 
2l6 



FORMS 217 

The forms that follow are presented solely as illustrations of what 
seem to me good school forms. Some matters that need forms have, 
as far as I can find, nothing to meet the needs. 

Perhaps the greatest need of all is more uniformity within each 
system, for convenience and clearness of record and of review. Some 
day, some one may take this matter in hand and thoroughly revise the 
system of a large city. His reform would no doubt be followed 
promptly by many other cities. In this line especially to be com- 
mended is the report of the Committee of Finance, Feb. 28, 1906, to the 
New York Board of Education upon the recommendation of Henry 
R. M. Cook, auditor. 

Special attention is deservedly called to the rules and regulations of 
the city of Indianapolis. The teachers' promotion rules of Baltimore 
are notably valuable. 

In a few instances of obvious errors, I have changed a word or two 
in a form, without comment. I have made a few other changes for 
various reasons scarcely worth publishing. 

The theory of certain forms is discussed at several points in Perry's 
Manage?nent of a City School. The best forms are those patiently de- 
veloped by experience in some one or more good schools and then 
tested and improved in other equally good schools. The failure of 
a form may, of course, be due to the inefficiency of those using it, 
but more often it is due to its inapplicability to existing conditions. 
Thereby, it may become a valid criterion of judgment. 

Most of the good forms have been developed by the intermediate 
school officers — principals, directors, and supervisors — for the suf- 
ficient reason that they can see both ends of most educational matters. 

The credit due to each city is obvious in nearly every instance upon 
the face of the form as printed here. Its publication is evidence of my 
appreciation and thanks. 



2l8 



APPENDIX D 



I 

Public School No Borough of 

Examined by , 190 

Principal General Estimate 

Assistant to Principal " 

Assistant to Principal " 

Additional Teacher. " 



Note. — In rating teachers on this sheet the abbreviations should be used as follows: 
Meritorious: A (highest grade), B+, B. Non-meritorious: C (inferior), D (deficient). 

When the superintendent's estimate of a teacher's ability to instruct or to discipline is less 
than B, a detailed report is required under 2 or 3. This detailed report may be omitted in 
cases where estimate of the teacher's ability to instruct or to discipline is B or higher. 

The superintendents are to report upon the work and attendance of all teachers, regular 
and special (except substitutes) , who have been employed during any portion of the term. 

Number of Classes at Date. 



Names 

The names of teachers 
are to be written in alpha- 
betical order, surnames 
first, and without regard 
to the grade of class 
taught. 



Grade 

AND 

Sex of 
Class 



Charac- 
ter OF 



Instruction 





D. 


60 


^ 


B 




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Discipline 



Remarks 










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GENERAL REMARKS ON THE CONDITION OP THE SCHOOL AS A WHOLE 



FORMS 



219 



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220 



APPENDIX D 



" C. G. Pearce, Superintendent. 

MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS Principal's Ratiag 



Surname Given Name and Initials 


School 


Born What Tear 


Date 

190.__ 


Diplomas and certificates. 
Give particulars. 








Experience, in months, as 
teacher before becoming 
principal. Give particulars. 










Experience, in months, as 
principal outside Milwau- 
kee. Give particulars. 










Experience, in months, as 
principal in Milwaukee. 
Give particulars. 










General estimate of principal's ability and value 


ASST. 
SUPT. 


SUPT. 



Remarks: 



Remarks : 



ESTIMATE BY 


= 


= 


ESTIMATE BY 

16, Understanding of and sympathy 
with children 


= 




I. Scholarship 




2. Professional preparation 






17. Knowledge of individual pupils 






3. Personal appearance 






18. Influence upon individual pupils 






4. Educational standards 






19. Influence on school 






5. Interest in profession and means 
of improvement 






20. Influence in community 






6. Ability to lead and inspire 






21. Ability to meet and deal with vis- 
itors and parents 






7. Firmness and tact 






22. Methods of dealing with teachers 






8. Personal ability to discipline 






23. Methods of dealing with pupils 






9. Personal ability to teach 






24. Use and care of school material 
and property 






10. Ability to help teachers to disci- 
pline 






25. Use of school time 






II. Ability to help teachers to instruct 






26. Attitude towards fellow-employees 






12. Knowledge of condition of instruc- 
tion and discipline in the school 






27. Promptness and correctness of 
reports 






13. Order and discipline on play- 
ground, etc. 






28. General impression 






14. Condition of discipline in building 












15. Condition of instruction in build- 
ing 








« 





Remarks : 



Remarks: 



FORMS 221 



III 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



EXAMINATION FOR TEACHER'S LICENSE No. 1 



Office of the Board of Examinees, 

New York, July 15, 1907. 

A Professional Examination of eligible applicants (men) for License No. i will be con- 
ducted by the Board of Examiners on Monday and Tuesday, January 6 and 7, 1908, begin- 
ning at 9 A.M., at the Hall of the Board of Education, Park Avenue and sgth Street, Borough 
of Manhattan, and at such other places as the Board of Examiners may hereafter determine. 

A Professional Examination of eligible applicants (women) for License No. i will be con- 
ducted by the Board of Examiners on Monday and Tuesday, January 6 and 7, 1908, begin- 
ning at 9 A.M., at the DeWitt Clinton High School, loth Avenue, 58th and 59th Streets, 
Borough of Manhattan, and at such other places as the Board of Examiners may hereafter 
determine. 

An Academic Examination of eligible applicants for License No. i (men and women) will 
be held, under the same authority, on January 2 and 3, 1908, at the Hall of the Board of Edu- 
cation, Park Avenue and sgth Street, Borough of Manhattan. A circular showing the scope 
of this examination may be obtained at this office upon request. 

All applicants for License No. i, men as well as women, will be required to take the aca- 
demic and the professional examination; but certain applicants may, in accordance with Sec- 
tion IV of this circular, be exempted, in whole or in part, from the academic examination. 

Three days may be required for the Professional Examination. Persons coming from a 
distance should arrange to remain three days in New York City. 

I With the exceptions hereafter mentioned (see Section VH), persons at least eighteen 
years of age and less than thirty-six years, who are eligible in accordance with the following 
requirements, will be admitted to the examination: — 

To be eligible for the examination, women applicants must have one of the following 
qualifications : — 

(a) (i) Graduation from a high school or academy having a course of study of not less 
than four years, or graduation prior to September i, 1899, from a high school or academy 
having a course of study of not less than three years, approved by the State Commissioner of 
Education ; and (2) graduation from a school or class for the professional training of teach- 
ers having a course of study of not less than two years, consisting of seventy-six weeks, 
approved (for City licenses) by the State Commissioner of Education ; or, in lieu of such 
graduation, graduation from a school or class for the professional training of teachers hav- 
ing a course of study of one year, approved (for City licenses) by the same authority, together 
with successful experience in teaching for one year of not less than thirty-eight weeks. 

(3) Graduation from a professional course of two years in a normal school, approved by 
the State Commissioner of Education, after graduation from an approved four years' high 
school course, together with (i) the passing of an academic examination set by the City 
Superintendent of Schools for admission to the training schools, or of an academic examina- 
tion set by the State Commissioner of Education, or by the College Entrance Examination 
Board of the Middle States and Maryland for entrance to college, or the passing of other 
examination satisfactory to the Board of Examiners, or (2) one year's successful experience 
in teaching. 

(<r) Graduation from a four years' normal school course, approved by the State Commis- 
sioner of Education, together with two years' successful experience in teaching. 

(if) Graduation from a satisfactory normal school or training school course of not less 
than two years, after graduation from a satisfactory high school, together with not less than 
three years' successful experience in teaching. 

(?) Five years' successful experience in teaching, together with the passing of an aca- 
demic examination set by the City Superintendent of Schools for admission to training 
schools, or by the State Commissioner of Education for a State Life Certificate, given since 
1892, or by the College Entrance Examination Board of the Middle States and Maryland for 
admission to college, or the passing of other academic examination approved by the Board of 
Examiners 

(_/) Graduation from a college or university recognized by the Regents of the University 
of the State of New York, together with (i) the completion of a pedagogical course of at least 
one year satisfactory to the City Superintendent of Schools, or (2) three years' successful . 
experience in teaching. 



222 APPENDIX D 

The pedagogical course mentioned in this subdivision (/) shall consist of at least two hun- 
dred and fifty hours of approved pedagogical study, of which not more than ninety hours may 
be in logic and psychology. 

(g) Graduation from a normal college located within The City of New York, authorized 
by law to grant degrees, and approved by the State Commissioner of Education for the pro- 
fessional training of teachers. 

To be eligible for the examination, men applicants must have one of the following 
qualifications: — 

(h) The same as (/) above. 

The pedagogical course mentioned in this subdivision (/:) shall consist of at least two hun- 
dred and fiftjr hours of approved pedagogical study, of which not more than ninety hours 
may be in logic and psychology. 

{i) Graduation from a high school or academy having a course of not less than four years, 
approved by the State Commissioner of Education, and graduation from a school or class for 
the professional training of teachers having a course of study of not less than two years, con- 
sisting of seventy-six weeks, approved by the same authority, or, in lieu thereof, one of the 
following: (i) Graduation from a four years' normal school course, approved by the State 
Commissioner of Education, together with three years' successful experience in teaching, or, 
(2) graduation from a State normal or training school course of not less than two years after 
the completion of a high school course approved by the State Commissioner of Education, 
together with three years' successful experience in teaching. 

II. The Professional Examination will be conducted according to the following scheme: — 
Monday, January 6, 1908, written exami- (a) History and Principles 
nation of Education (maximum 80) 

(b) Methods of Teaching (maximum 120) 
\c) Constructive Work 

and Drawing (maximum 16) 

Tuesday, January 7, 1908, written and (d) Music (maximum 16) 

practical tests (e) Physical Training (maximum 16) 

(/) Sewing (for women) (maximum 16) 

(g) An oral examination (maximum 16) designed to enable the examiners to estimate the 
applicant's use of English, and general personal fitness for the position of teacher, will be 
|given at times to be appointed by the Board of Examiners. 

(A) An examinatioti of the applicant's character and record (maximum 20) as a student 
arid teacher will also be made. Successful experience in teaching for one-half year or more 
will receive credit when proved by original documents. Experience in practice teaching will 
not receive credit. Substitute teachers in the New York City public schools who have actu- 
ally taught as substitutes for 80 days or more should file their substitute licenses properly 
filled out and certified. 

The applicant's use of English in the written examination will also be noted. 
. III. Applicants who passed the above-described examination in items (a) and (b) (counted 
together) in January, 1907, or May or June, 1907, may have the standing then obtained 
remain to their credit for this examination, and they need not appear on January 6, next. 
Applicants who, in January, 1907, or May or June, 1907, passed the examinations in items 
(c), {d), (e), and (/) (counted together) may likewise have the standing remain to their credit 
for this examination, and they need not appear on January 7. Applicants described in the 
two preceding sentences should make written application to the Board of Examiners at least 
two weeks before the examination. No woman applicant will be licensed who does not 
receive a final average of at least seventy per cent between the marks received in group {a, b) 
and in group (c, d, e, /, g, A), or who does not receive a passing mark in each group and in 
oral English and in record; and no man will be licensed who does not receive a final average 
of at least seventy-five per cent between the marks received in group (a, 6) and in group 
(r, d, e, g, li), or who does not receive a passing mark in each group, and in oral English 
and in record. 

IV. The City Superintendent will exempt from the Academic Examination for License 
No. I applicants eligible under I (a), I (c), I {d), I (/), and applicants eligible under I {b) 
and I (^1, who have had one year's experience in teaching, and also such applicants under 
I (_/"), and I (h) as the City Superintendent may in his discretion elect. 

Applicants who have passed the examination set by the City Superintendent of Schools 
for admission to Training Schools, or by the New York State Commissioner of Education for 
a State Life Certificate, or by the College Entrance Examination Board of the Middle States 
and Maryland will be exempted by the City Superintendent of Schools from this Academic 
Examination. 

V. A certificate of physical fitness, made after examination by one of the physicians of 
the Board of Education, will be required in the case of each applicant. Applicants are 
required to be vaccinated, unless the examining physician recommends otherwise. 

VI. All persons in doubt as to their eligibility, and desiring information respecting the 
matter, may communicate with the Board of Examiners not later than December 15, 1907. 



FORMS 223 



VII. Section 66, subdivision 12, of the by-laws of the Board of Education, reads as follows: 
" No married woman shall be appointed to any teaching or supervising posi- 
tion in the day public schools unless her husband is incapacitated from physical 

or mental disease to earn a livelihood, or has continuously abandoned her for not 
less than three years prior to the date of appointment, provided proof satisfactory 
to the Board of Superintendents is furnished to establish such physical or mental 
disability or abandonment." 

VIII. The examination will begin promptly at the time stated above, and no applicant 
who is late will be allowed to enter the examination hall. 

WILLIAM H. MAXWELL, 

City Superintendent of Schools. 

IV 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW. YORK 



ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS— LICENSE No. 1 OR GRADE B 



ZhiQ is to Certffig, That 

having passed the required tests of character, scholarship, and gen- 
eral fitness, this License No. i (Grade B) is hereby issued to h 

to act as Crade Jeael^er \t) t\)<z Elementary SGI700I5 of The City 
of New York for the period of one year from the date of appoint- 
ment, subject to the By-laws of the Board of Education. 

WITNESS my hand and the seal of the Board of Education this 
day of 190 



City Superintendent of Hchooh. 

V 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS— LICENSE No. I OR GRADE B 

ZUq is to Cerfif^t That 

having passed the required tests of character, scholarship, and gen- 
eral fitness, this License No. i (Grade B) is hereby issued to h 

to act as Qrade Jeael7er ip tl^e Elemei^tary Sel?ools of The City 
of New York, subject to the By-laws of the Board of Education. 

WITNESS my hand and the seal of the Board of Education this 
day of_ 190 

City Superintendent of Schools. 



224 



APPENDIX D 



VI 
BOARD OF EDUCATION 

Office of City Superintendent 



Newark, N.J., 

M 

Your record in the examination for 

certificate, 

held 

will be found on the other side of this notice. 
Very truly yours, 



City Superintendent. 



SUBJECT 


Standing 


SUBJECT 


Standing 


Arithmetic 




History of Education, Elem. 




Algebra, Elem. 




History of Education, Adv. 




Algebra, Adv. 




Psychology, Elem. 




Plane Geometry 




Psychology, Adv. 




Solid Geometry 




Theory & Prac. of Teaching, 




Trigonometry 




Elem. 
Theory & Prac. of Teaching, 




U. S. History 




Adv. 




General History 




School Management 




Geography 




Theory & Prac. of Kind'g, 




Physiology & Hygiene 




Elem. 




Eng. Language & Grammar 




Theory of the Kind'g, Adv. 




Eng. Language & Literature 




Prin. & Prac. of Kind'g, Prin- 




Reading & Literature 




cipal's 




Modern Eng. & Amer. Litera- 








ture 




Physical Geography 




Gen. Eng. & Amer. Literature 




Botany 




Rhetoric 




Geology 
Astronomy 




Spelling 




Physics 




Writing 




Zoology 
Chemistry 




Drawing, Elem. 








Drawing, Adv. 




German 




Music, Elem. 




Latin 




Music, Adv. 




Greek 




Manual Training 




Bookkeeping 




Cooking 




Stenography 





FORMS 



225 



VII 
BOARD OF EDUCATION 

NEWARK, N.J. 



APPLICATION 

FOR THE ENDORSEMENT OF 

DIPLOMAS AND CERTIFICATES 

PRESENTED BY CANDIDATES FOR LICENSE 
TO TEACH IN THE 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEWARK, N.J. 



To the Board of Examiners of the City of Newark : 

I, the undersigned, hereby 

make application for the endorsement of my diploma and certificate, in order that 
I may teach in the public schools of your city. 

In support of my application I make the following statement of facts for your 
information. 

Dated 

(Signature in full.) 

(PostofBce address.) 

Regular meetings of the Board of Examiners are held each month. All com- 
munications should be addressed to the City Superintendent of Schools. 



it; 


S 



t 

•s 

B 

4) 
«3 

© 

a 


APPLICATION 

OF 

P. 0. ADDRESS : 

DATE: 

POSITION DESIRED: 






a CQ 



9? 






^ 



226 



APPENDIX D 



STATEMENT OF APPLICANT 



Full name?- 
Age?. 



Academic 
Training 
(For Alt) 



Of what High School or other academic institution are you a graduate? 

Date of graduation ? 

What was the time required for the course from which you were graduated? 

If not a graduate, give the name of the school you attended, the course pursued, 
and the time in attendance 

f Of what Normal School or Training School for Teachers are you a graduate? 



For Nor- 
malSchool 
Graduates 

For 

College 
Graduates 

For 
Kinder- 
gartners 

Special 
Teachers 



Date of graduation ? 

Course of study pursued? 

Length of course? How long did you attend? 

(- Of what College or University are you a graduate? 

j Date of graduation ? Degree received? 

Give the subjects pursued directly bearing on the profession of teaching, and 

state the time devoted to each 

Of what Kindergarten Training School are you a graduate ? 

Length of course ? How long did you attend?. 

Date of graduation ? 

I- Of what Training School or College are you a graduate ? 

-j Length of course? How long did you attend? 

'^ Date of graduation ? 

If you have done post-graduate work, state its character, how much and where done. 

What special certificates do you hold? 

\ Before graduation : 

[ After graduation : 

In what grades have you taught ? 

Make a full statement of your experience as a teacher, naming the places where you 
have taught, the length of time in each place, and the class or grade taught. If you have 
served as principal or supervised a department, or taught in summer schools or teachers' 
institutes, state the fact. In short, set forth any facts which will show your experience, stand- 
ing, and success as a teacher. 



How many years have you taught? 



Can you teach the required grade music? Drawing?-- 

Can you play the piano for opening and closing exercises? 

What grade or grades are you best fitted to teach ? 

Are you at present engaged in teaching? 

If so, state where, in what capacity, and the salary you are receiving?- 



What notice must you give to secure your release ? 

If you have any physical defects, state their nature? 

Give the names and post-office addresses of three persons of standing who know of your 
experience and success as a teacher. 



FORMS 



227 



VIII 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 

TEACHERS' DIRECTORY 









Surname 


First name in full 


Middle initial 


Minneapolis address 


Residence Phone No. 


School Room Grade 


High School subject 


Permanent home address. (If you have no permanent home, please give an 
address through which you may be reached when not in Minneapolis.) 



Date_ 



-igo- 



If Address is Changed, Notify Superintendent Immediately. 
Please give name as you wish it permanently carried on the Board of Education 

records. 
Do not fold or mutilate this slip. Use ink. Write Plainly. 

IX 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



CERTIFICATE OF ASSIGNMENT 



Clerk 






I 


3IST 


RIC 


r No. 


BOROUGH OF 








1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


11 






•0 
« 


i 


.S3 


m 










P 


(A 




•si 
'if 


0) 




1 

en 


NAME 


0) 

11 




u 
«. 
SI'S 

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•5 2 





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en 


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n 

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11 

mm 






fSS 


Y 


M 


Y 


Y 


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<! 





























Attest I 



I hereby certify that the above statements are correct 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 



228 



APPENDIX D 



X 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



Clerk 



CERTIFICATE OF TERMINATION OF SERVICE 
DISTRICT No. BOROUGH OF 



School 



Name 



Cause 



Date 



Attest ; 



I hereby certify that the above statements are correct. 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 



XI 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



CERTIFICATE OF CHANGE OF NAME 



Clerk 




DISTRICT No. 


borough of 




Position 

(Grade or 

Rank) 


School 


NAME CHANGED 


Date of 


From 


To 


Change 













I hereby certify that the above statements are correct. 



Attest ; 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 



FORMS 



229 



XII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



CERTIFICATE OF CHANGE IN SALARY SCHEDULE 



Clerk 




DISTRICT No. 


BOROUGH OF 








1 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


f 






u 




06 


<2 

t3 




ffl n! 



.2 S 


1 


Name 


3 
■a 

■s 

a 


fa 


1 



H 


> 

2 

Oi 

< 


a 
>• 
>. 

— 
en 




PL, 


Year 


C 3 

<;p 





















Attest ; 



I hereby certify that the above statements are correct. 

Cify Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 



DISTRICT No. 



XIII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

The City of New York 

borough of 



At a meeting of the Board of Superintendents held the service 

of the following-named teacher was declared " fit and meritorious " or not " fit and meri- 
torious" according to the provisions of Section logi of the Revised Charter. 

Clerk 



School 



Name 



Rank 

or 
Grade 



Year 
for which 
Service was 
Approved 



Year 

for which 

Service was 

NOT Approved 



Schedule 



Salary 
Year 



Annual 

Increase 

Due on 

ist Day of 



Attest : 

Secretary Board of Superintendents. 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



230 



APPENDIX D 



XIV 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION— The City of New York 



CERTIFICATE OF TRANSFER 



Clerk 








DISTRICT No. BOROUGH OF 










1 
si 


2 

o 
•a 
S 

8S 

•gs 


3 

a 
H 

o 
a 
Q 


4 

■a 

> 
o 

o. 

< 


Name 


5 

1^ 


6 

n 

— 


7 
SO 

C tii 


tSS 


Year 


^<a 





















Attest ; 



I hereby certify that the above statements are correct. 

City Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 

XV 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION— The City of New York 



CERTIFICATE OF EXPERIENCE 

(After deduction for absence on leave) 



Clerk 



DISTRICT No. 



BOROUGH OF 



1 


S 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 








u8 

c-^-g 


"3 


0) 




^1 




"o 


s 




■^s 


o 


> 




B^ 




ss- 


pil 




■^^ 


■" Ot/3 




t/3 


Name 


rt o 
&<t« 


n 


C to 




o 


as 
5^ 






E^ 




— 


S ° 
c u 


li 


Y 


M 


Y 


Y 


M 


O 3 

<:o 


Time 


of Ab 


sence 


on 


Lea 


ve 




to 


deducted from 


Total 


Expe 


rience 



Attest : 



I hereby certify that the above statements are correct. 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



Chief Clerk. 



FORMS 231 

XVI 

City of Portland — Public Schools 

S;{)is dertifiES tljat 

has creditably completed the Grammar School Course of Study, and having 
obtained the required rank, is admitted to the 

JFourtJj ®lass of tlje ?§tgf) Sdjool 

Principal. 

Supt. 

Portland Maine, June > 190 

XVII 

4®= The Director, when he has filled in his report, will forward to the District Superin- 
tendent, who, after making his report, will transmit to the City Superintendent of Schools. 

Department of Education — The City of -New York 
SPECIAL TEACHERS 

REPORT TO THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

Record of M ^ 

Teacher of , Borough of ^ 

District No who applies for a renewal of Temporary License to 

Teach from_ 190 

to 1 90 

DIRECTOR'S REPORT 

Ability to comprehend instructions 

Knowledge of special subject — ■ — — — 

Skill in statement . 

Skill in questioning _— 

Use of apperception 

Use of correlation . 

Ability to assist class teachers . — 

Self-control and manners . 

Use of voice _ 

Control of pupils — 

General remarks _ 



Director of- 



DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT 



District Superintendent of— 



DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT'S RECOMMENDATION 



Associate City Superintendent. 
.190 



232 



APPENDIX D 



XVIII 

RECOMMENDATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF A TEACHER 



Department of Education — The City of New York 



Public School- 



-District- 



-Borough of- 



To THE Board of Superintendents: 

Recommendation is hereby made for the promotion 
of the following-named teacher in this school : 



Name— 

salary schedule- 



- from salary schedule - 



grade . 



-grade- 



(^For explanation of salary schedules see By-Laws, sec. 64) 

Eligibility, Give licenses (New York City only, not including substitute) with dates, and 

state whether permanent or temporary: 

Length of Service in New York City Public Schools (give dates) : 

Names of Teachers of the Same or Higher Year of the Course who have had 
Equal or Longer Service, but who have not been recommended for Promo- 
tion : Give reasons in full why each of these teachers has not been recommended. 



RECOMMENDATION OF DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT 



-Principal. 



District Superintendent. 

Note /or Principals and District Superintendents — This report should be forwarded 
to the Board o_f Superintetidents as soon as possible after the vacancy occurs. 

conditions of eligibility 

As determined by the Committee on By-Laws and Legislation, December, 1903. 

Graduation Class (8 B). 

In Brooklyn, the teacher must have either the Graduating Class License or License No. 2 
(Grade A License). 

In Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens and Richmond the teacher must have either the Gradu- 
ating Class License, the License No. 2 (Grade A License), or License No. i issued prior to 
1901. 

Grades 7 A, 7 B, and 8 A. 

In Brooklyn, teachers must have either the Promotion License or License No. 2 (Grade A 
License). 

In Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens and Richmond the teacher must have either the Pro- 
motion License, License No. 2 (Grade A), or License No. i issued prior to 1901. 



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REMARKS 



FORMS 233 

XIX 

OFFICE OF THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 
Park Avenue and 59th Street 

New York, 190. __. 

Dear Sir : — 

M , an applicant for a New York City license, 

refers to you as having knowledge concerning one or more of the following 
matters, namely: The (a) course of education, (b) standing as respects 
scholarship, (c) professional experience and moral character of the applicant. 

Will you please give the information asked for under one or more of the 
divisions below, and thereby greatly oblige. 

Yours respectfully. 



City Superintendent of Schools. 
M 



File No. I License __ 

ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL COURSE 

Give the date of the entrance ofM. 

at your institution: Date of leaving: 

Date oi graduation (if any) : Name of course pursued:,. 

Scheduled length of course : .Degree given (if any) : — 



II 

STUDIES 
What is your estimate of the intellectual ability and general scholarship of the 

applicant ? 

What is his (or her) specialty, and what is his (or her) proficiency therein ? 

Did the applicant pursue in your institution any pedagogical courses of study ? 

If so, what, and for what period ?. 

Did the applicant pursue any graduate studies ? If so, what, for what time, 

and with what success? 



234 APPENDIX D 

III 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE 



Detailed answers for which there is not suf&cient space below may be written on the other 
side of this sheet, toward the bottom. 



In what schools has the appUcant taught within your knowledge or under 
your observation ? 

How long in each school ? (^Please give duration and dates of each engage- 
ment.) 

Was he (or she) ever discharged from any position as a teacher, or required 
to resign? If so, for what cause ? 

Has he (or she) ever failed of reappointment ? If so, why? 

As far as you have observed, has he (or she) any physical defect ? 



What means does he (or she) employ to maintain order, and with what 
success? 

Has he (or she) business or executive ability ? 



Are his (or her) general deportment and moral character those becoming a 
teacher ? 

What is your estimate of the applicant's general teaching ability ? 



Please add such statements as you may wish to make regarding the teaching 
ability of the applicant in his (or her) specialty. 



(Name) . _ . 
(Position) 
(Address) . 
Date 190 



FORMS 235 



XX 

Notification of Retirement 



BOARD OF EDUCATION of the CITY OF NEW YORK 

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY 
PARK AVENUE AND FIFTY-NINTH STREET 



M.. 



Dear. 

I have this day had the honor of placing your name on the roll of Retired 

Teachers for The City of New York, to date from , at 

an annuity of^ computed as follows: 



Years of service 

Annuity 

Monthly payment . 



Payments are made by the City Paymaster on or about the first of each 
month at his office, No. 83 Chambers Street, Manhattan. 

If you prefer to have your checks mailed or collected by attorney, you can 
arrange for the same with the Paymaster when you call for your first check. 

As it is imperative that a correct record be kept in this office of your home 

.address, I respectfully request that you notify me immediately of any change 

therein. 

Respectfully yours. 



Secretary, Board of Education. 



236 APPENDIX D 

XXI 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



APPLICATION FOR EXCUSE OF ABSENCE WITH PAY — 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



See Paragraph 6 on Next Page. 190 

To THE Local School Board, District No : 

Application is hereby made by 

teacher in Public School No District No Borough oil 

for excuse of absence with pay on the following dates 

total days such absence having been caused by 

Present annual salary $ Grade of class now taught 

Previous absences in this school year, and absences in the preceding school year. 

Days Excused with pay 

August I, 190 , to last July .... 

Other absences since last August . . . 

Amount of said other absence for which pay has 

previously been asked .... 



{Signature of Teacher^ 
(P.O. Address.) 

physician's CERTIFICATE OF TEACHER'S ILLNESS 
5Ef)is is to dcrtifg, That 

of Public School , Borough of , was under 

my professional care and was unable to attend school on any of the follow- 
ing days: 

The technical designation of this teacher's illness is 

This certificate is intended as evidence in support of the teacher's claim 
for pay during said absence. 

M.D. 

Date 190 Office 



FORMS 237 

New York, 190 

I hereby certify that the applicant's statements as to length of service and 
number of days of absence are correct, and recommend that this application be 
( granted 
( refused 



Principal, P. S. No. Borough of. 

. ■ V this application, 

disapprove ) 

Date 190. 



District Superintendent. 



At a meeting of the Local School Board of School District No., 
held on the day of 190 , this application was. . 



Attest : 

Secretary Local School Board, District No 

Excerpt from By-Laws, Board of Education 

Section 43. Subdivision 4. Teachers' absences from duty may be excused without pay 
by the Local School Boards, on written application, indorsed by the principal and the Dis- 
trict Superintendent. No such absence, however, shall be excused without the approval of 
the Board of Superintendents. 

5. Applications for excuse for absence with pay, in elementary schools, shall be made to 
the proper Local School Board. Such absence may be excused with pay by the proper Local 
School Board, subject to the approval of the Board of Superintendents, for any of the follow- 
ing reasons; 

(a) Serious personal illness. 

(b) Death in the teacher's immediate family. 

(c) Compliance with the requirements of a court. 
{d) Quarantine established by the Board of Health. 

Absence on account of the requirements of a committee of the Board of Education, of the 
City Superintendent, of the Board of Superintendents, or of the Board of Examiners shall not 
be considered absence from duty ****** 

6. Applications for excuse with pay for absence caused by personal illness must be in- 
dorsed by the principal and by the District Superintendent assigned to the school, and must 
be accompanied by a physician's certificate. 

7. No excuse for absence with pay shall be granted unless the application be made within 
thirty days from the termination of such absence. No excuse for absence with pay shall be 
granted in advance. No refund shall be allowed for absence exceeding ninety-five days in 
any one school year. 

Under clause {a), for each separate period of continuous illness, the rules regulating re- 
funds shall be as follows : for an absence of one day, no refund ; for an absence of two days, 
a refund of one-fourth of a day's pay ; for an absence of three days, a refund of three-fourths 
of a day's pay ; for an absence of four days, a refund of one and one-half day's pay ; full pay 
shall be granted for the fifth and succeeding days of absence, to and including the twentieth ; 
half pay shall be granted for the twenty-first and following days of absence not exceeding the 
ninety-fifth. 

Under clause (5) , a refund not exceeding three days' full pay shall be allowed. 

Under clause (c), in cases where the court duty concerns the administration of the 
schools, full pay, in other cases, half pay, shall be granted. 

Refunds under clause (d) shall not be granted for absences exceeding ten school days 
within the space of one year. 

No refund of full pay for more than sixteen days in the aggregate shall be granted to the 
same applicant in any one school year, , ; 



238 



APPENDIX D 



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FORMS 239 

XXIII 
SUBSTITUTE'S CERTIFICATE 
The Superintendent of Schools of the City of Minneapolis 
'§tnh^ fetififS That 

Is authorized to act as a Substitute Teacher in the Public Schools of Minneapolis 

at a salary of ^ per day, while actually employed. ^ 

This Certificate will expire June 15, 190 , unless previously revoked. '^ 



Superintendent of Schools. 
Minneapolis, Minn. 190 '£ 

B^° No person will be allowed to substitute in the Minneapolis Schools 
who does not hold an unexpired Certificate. 

Read carefully " Important Information " on back of this card. 

(over) 

IMPORTANT INFORMATION 

Substitutes are required to attend the meetings for their respective grades. 

Send immediate WRITTEN notice to the Superintendent of any change in address or 
telephone number. We must REFUSE to receive such notices by telephone. 

You will find it greatly to your advantage to become acquainted with the principals of the 
different schools. 

As our school buildings are equipped with Northwestern telephones your certificate is of 
no value unless you can be reached by that line. 

When called in time you will observe the same hours as the regular teachers and report 
at building twenty minutes before opening of school. 

Report in person to principal and be SURE that your name and salary are correctly 
registered. 

Keep an exact account of your work, including building, room and grade, and amount 
due. This is of value in case of error in payroll. 

Pay day comes on the Friday following the last Tuesday of each month. Substitutes will 
call for their checks, at the office of the Superintendent, on the Saturday morning following 
each pay day, BUT NOT BEFORE. The office closes at twelve o'clock Saturday noon. 

Please call for your checks promptly and thus prevent troublesome delays in closing the 
office records for the month. (over) 

XXIV 

INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



TRANSFER CARD FOR PUPIL LEAVING THE CITY 



Indianapolis, I90 

Name 

Age Years Months. 

Date of Vaccination 

Has completed ^Grade Half. 

No. days absence during current school year 

Scholarship: General 

English 

Arithmetic 

Principal. 

Public School No. 



240 APPENDIX D 

XXV 

Department of Education, The City of New York 

Application for ^license to teach in 



Give grade of license Give subject or subjects, as, Give grade or kind 

Common Branches, Latin, of school, as, Ele- 
etc. mentary Schools 



Leave blank this and the two following lines 
Reg. Number 



File Number NEW YORK, I90_ 

Name Age last birthday 

Write at least one Christian name and your Surname in full — No pet names 

Residence — or 1 Permanent 

Post-office Address j Temporary (until ) 

Schools Attended 



Give all schools. In each case give dates and length of attendance 



Graduate of 

Give, with dates of graduation, only schools or institutions above those of elementary or 

grammar grades 



Present position or employment. 



Experience in Teaching Years, and Months, as follows : 

Do not include practice teaching in normal or training schools. Mark substitute teaching as 

such 

Place^ From to Subjects 

Place From to Subjects 

Place From to Subjects . 

Place From to Subjects 



N.B. — Information for which there is insufficient room above may be written on the back of 
this blank, beginning at the bottom. 



FORMS 241 

REFERENCES 

Mark with a references as to graduations and scholarship, with b those as to experience and 

character 

Name and AHHress 



<c « « 



(C C( « 



« « « 



Previous Examination. I made application for license in , . 

Grade of license Month Year 



Result. 



The following lines are to be left blank by the applicant 

"Written Examination 



Oral Examination Final Standing. 



Allowance made for outside experience years. 

License —granted, under date 190 

Grade Subjects Borough 

(Minutes, ) 



Secretary, Board of Examiners City Superintendent of Schools 

First renewal 

City Superintendent of Schools 

Second renewal 

City Superintendent of Schools 

Made permanent , 

City Superintendent of Schools 



242 APPENDIX D 

XXVI 

The District of Columbia 
REPORT UPON OFFICERS AND TEACHERS 



To the Superintendent of Schools : 

Washington, D.C, 190. 

Name School Grade 

Teacher, Principal, Director, Supervisor, Special Teacher, Head of Department. 
(Cross off all terms except the official title of person reported upon.) 

Certificate held 

Date of Appointment Salary this date 

Graduate 

(Name all schools issuing diplomas.) 

Marks: A, admirable. E, excellent. VG, very good. G, good. F, fair. T, tolerable. 
P, poor. V P, very poor. C, complete failure. H, highly commendable. S, satisfactory. ' 
I, improving. D, deficient. O, no preparation whatever. 

V G is the highest mark given until the fourth half year here, and G the highest until 
the second. X, no opinion. Z, opinion unnecessary. 

Instructing 

Voice Fitness. in Scholarship for position 

Manner Handwriting 

Methods Blackboard 

Questioning Results 

Controlling 

Self-control Ability to see what is going on 

Class control Willingness to receive suggestions 

Methods Ability to carry out suggestions 

Educating ........... 

Tact Scientific knowledge of children 

Executive qualities General scholarship and culture 

Disposition and character. Apparent native ability 

Special strength 

Special weakness 

Specialties : To be reported on all elementary teachers. 

Music Drawing Physical Culture Penmanship 

General rating. 

Remarks: Signed 

Position 



Every rating is with reference exclusively to the position now held. A duplicate is to 
be kept on file. The original may or may not be seen by the teacher at his option. 
Illustration : Manner, F, I, means fair but improving. 

This report is due in January and in June upon all teachers not hitherto 
V. G. or higher, twice consecutively . 



FORMS 243 

XXVII 

OFFICE OF THE 

superintendent of instruction 

Annual Report on Teachers' Standing 

St. Louis, Mo., igo 

TO PRINCIPALS: 

Rule 44, Section VIII, of the Rules of the Board of Education provides as follows : 

" For the proper grading as to merit, the Superintendent of Instruction shall direct the 
principals of each of the public schools to render him at least three reports during each year 
upon the standing and qualifications of each individual teacher, in such manner and upon 
such printed blanks as he may find advisable for obtaining the fullest information in that 
regard." 

The principals will make these reports, required by the rule of the Board of Education, 
during the first week of November, January and April of each year. It is intended to have 
two of these reports in a brief form, and the last one in the form of a full statement. 

You are requested to return to this office, on or before , a 

full report of your estimate of the practical efficiency and the professional qualities of each of 
the teachers of your school, including Kindergarten teachers, in accordance with the direc- 
tions given below. 

For a correct understanding of the brief headings of the columns, the following sugges- 
tions are made : 

A.— PRACTICAL EFFICIENCY 

1. Management of Children. — This includes what is usually called the " discipline of 
the room," and also the general influence of the teacher's management on the development 
of character. Both the results and the methods of a teacher's management of the children 
should be taken into consideration. There may be, on one side, good order not based on fear 
of punishment, but brought about by a strong teacher's kindly influence over her pupils, and, 
on the other hand, there majr be strict order attained by an unnecessary frequency of cases 
of discipline, and a manifestation of caprice or unnecessary harshness. 

2. Instruction, • — A teacher's power to impart instruction should be judged both by the 
results accomplished, and by the educational value of her methods of teaching. The prin- 
cipal should take into consideration the influence which her instruction has on the develop- 
ment of the children's intelligence, interest, self-activity and progress. In case of the 
Kindergarten teacher, principals will report, under the head of Instruction, her efficiency in 
the educational work of the Kindergarten. 

3. Attention to Details of School Business. —This includes the teacher's regularity 
of attendance (tardiness), accuracy, and neatness of record work, promptness in required 
reports, readiness to carry out directions (cooperation), the neatness of the room and similar 
matters. 

B.- PROFESSIONAL QUALITIES 

4. Scholarship. — This includes the schooling received by the teacher, the general 
information which she possesses and preparation for her special work. 

5. Professional Interest and Zeal. — By this is meant the desire for self-improvement, 
the habit of reading good literature and of using the means of self-culture, which, through 
lectures and otherwise, the city offers. It includes professional progressiveness, attending 
teachers' meeting, etc. 

6. Personal Qualifications. — This report should show the general estimate which the 
principal places on the value of the presence and assistance of the teacher as a member of the 
faculty of the school. It includes the teacher's tact in dealing with parents and pupils, and 
her general influence. 

Kindly write on the other side of this paper in each column, opposite the name of the 
teacher, the initial letter of one of the four words : excellent, good, moderate and unsatis- 
factory — (e, g, m, u). 



244 



APPENDIX D 



7. Transfer. — Where a principal is dissatisfied with the work of a teacher and believes a 
transfer is advisable, the letter " t " should be placed in the fourth column. In such case the 
reason must be fully stated at the end of this report. No transfer should be indicated in this 
report for any cause other than dissatisfaction on part of the principal with the work or man- 
agement of the teacher. A principal should not recommend a transfer where the teacher, in 
his opinion, is inefficient and should be discontinued. In such case the word " inefficient" 
should be placed in the fourth column. 

8. Promotion. — Where a teacher does exceptionally good work and excels, compared 
with other teachers of the same grade, the principal shall designate her as worthy of promo- 
tion by placing the letter " p " opposite her name, in the fourth column. If more than one 
teacher is reported for promotion, the principal must indicate his preference by reporting 
" p I," " p 2 "; otherwise the recommendation is void. 

9. In addition to this general estimate expressed in marks, and made in regard to every 
teacher, principals will send a detailed report on every new teacher that has been added to 
their school by transfer or otherwise, since their report of a year ago. For this purpose they 
will write on each of the enclosed blanks the name of one of their new teachers and state fully 
their opinion of her practical efficiency and personal qualifications, under each of the six 
topics explained above. They will place the special topic as a title above each of the state- 
ments that are made concerning the new teacher. 

Principals should add reports on such of their old teachers in regard to whom they wish to 
change any of the opinions expressed in former years. 

Principals who have been transferred or appointed to a school on whose teachers they have 
not previously reported will send a detailed report on each teacher in their corps. As a rule 
this special and detailed report need not be made in regard to those teachers on whom the 
principal has reported fully in some previous year, except when such report is specially 
called for by the Superintendent. 

When making the returns that are hereby required, principals will place the names of all 
the teachers on one blank and write and sign the following statement : " A detailed report on 

the teachers in the above list was sent to the Superintendent in the year , and 

I hereby confirm the report then made as being a correct expression of my opinion of the 
present standing of these teachers." 

Your attention is urgently directed to the necessity of making this report a candid state- 
ment which is uninfluenced by any consideration except the wish to make it agree fully with 
the facts. A principal becomes alone responsible for the presence of unsatisfactory teachers 
in his school, if he fails to report frankly his estimate of their work and qualifications. 

Respectfully, 



Superintendent. 



_SCHOOL. 



St. Louis,- 



To the Superintendent of Instruction : 

In accordance with Rule 44, Section VIII, of the Rules of the Board of Education, I here- 
with present the following report on the standing of the teachers of my school, which is cor- 
rect according to the best of my knowledge and belief. 



Principal. 





Practical Efficiency 


Professional Qualities 


Request 


Names 


Manage- 
ment of 
Children 


Instruc- 
tion 


Attention 
to Details 
of School 
Business 


Scholar- 
ship 


Profes- 
sional 
Interest 
and Zeal 


Personal 
Qualifica- 
tions 


for 
Promo- 
tion or 
Transfer 


I _ _ _ 
















2 




3- - -- 




4 





FORMS 245 

XXVIII 

Age and Schooling Certificate, Revised Laws, Chap. 106, Sec. 32 

Wijis CertifijB That I am the of 

and that was born at , in the county of 

, and state (or country) of , on the 190 

and is now years months old. 



Signature of father, mother, guardian, or custodian. 
Worcester, Mass. 190 

Then personally appeared before me the above-named , and 

made oath that the foregoing certificate by signed is true to the best of 

knowledge and belief. I hereby approve the foregoing certificate 

of height ft. in., 

complexion , hair , having no sufficient reason to doubt that 

is of the age therein certified. I hereby certify that can read at 

sight, and can write legibly simple sentences in the English language. 

This certificate belongs to , and is to be surrendered 

to whenever .leaves the service of the corporation or employer 

holding the same; but if not claimed by said minor within thirty days from 
such time, it shall be returned to the superintendent of schools, or, if there is 
no superintendent of schools, to the school committee. 



For the Superintendent of Schools. 
Worcester, Mass 190 



246 



APPENDIX D 



XXIX 

Date of Examination igo... 

STATEMENT OF PHYSICAL HISTORY AND CONDITION OF APPLICANT 
FOR APPOINTMENT AS TEACHER 



INDIANAPOLIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

(By Act of Board of School Commissioners, July 10, 1896) 



A 


FULL NAME 


1 


RESIDENCE 


RACE- 


-WHITE OR BLACK j 


MARRIED OR SINGLE 


1 SEX — MALE OR FEMALE 




AGE 1 


DATE OF BIRTH 


1 WHERE BORN 



I hereby agree to answer all questions correctly, to the best of my knowledge ; any wilful 
deceit working as a forfeiture of my position. 



Signature of Applicant. 



Witness — Sup't of Schools. 





applicant's 


STATEMENT TO MEDICAL 


EXAMINER 


B 


NAME IN FULL 


1 WHITE OR BLACK 1 


AGE 




OCCUPATION 1 


WEIGHT HEIGHT 1 

Lbs. Ft. In. 1 


FIGURE 



Have you now or ever had any of the following diseases : 



Apoplexy 
Asthma? 
Bronchitis? . 
Cancer? . 
Tumors? 
Consumption? 
Disease of Brain 
Disease of Lungs 
Disease of Heart 
Disease of Liver 
Piles? . 



Fistula? 

Disease of Urinary 

Organs? 
General Debility? 
Gout? . 
Insanity? 
Jaundice? 
Paralysis? 
Pleurisy? 
Pneumonia? . 
Rheumatism? 



Hysteria? 
Neurasthenia? 
Scrofula? 
Ulcers? . 
Varicose Veins? 
Hemorrhage of 

Lungs? 
Spinal Disease? 
Constant Cough? 
Yellow Fever? 



Have you been vaccinated? 


Are you ruptured? 


If so, is a truss worn? 


Are you subject to headache, 
vertigo, or any nervous or 
muscular disease? 


Do you have epilepsy or fits? 


Have you a cough, expectora- 
tion, palpitation, or difficult 
breathing? 


Are you subject to dyspepsia, 
dysentery, or diarrhoea? 


Are you now under constant 
care of a physician? 


Who is your physician? 



What was the last disease you were treated for and how long were you ill ? 



(Physician — ) Is above history good, fair, or bad? ( 




-) 




C FAMILY HISTORY 

Father . 


AGE IF LIVING 


CONDITION OF HEALTH 


AGE AT DEATH 


CAUSE OF DEATH 


Mother . 










Brothers living 










Sisters living 











FORMS 247 

Do you now sleep or have you ever slept in the same room with one having consumption? 



Did any of your grandparents, parents, brothers, or sisters ever have consumption or any 
pulmonary or scrofulous diseases? 



Have you any kidney disease? 



If so, the urine should be tested. 

Spec. Grav Albumen 

Reaction Sugar 



FEMALE 



Is menstruation regular or healthy ? If not, state conditions and probable cause 

Menopause. (Over it or not.) 

How many children have you had? Date of last confinement? 

Have you been left in poor health from previous labors r 



{Physician — ) Are above answers good or bad ? ( ) 



Signature of Applicant. 
REPORT OF EXAMINING PHYSICIAN 



Is respiratory murmur clear over both lungs? 

Respiration per minute ? _ _ _ _ _ 


A. 

B. 


Are there indications of lung disease? 


C. 


Is character of heart's action uniform and regular? .... 

Are its sounds normal? 

Are there any indications of diseased blood-vessels? .... 


A. 

B. 

C. 


Is the pulse regular or irregular? . . 


A. 


B. . 






Are there any indications of impaired or diseased vital organs? . 

Hearing? 

Sight? 






Girth of chest |?"7""P'''"!'°" • " " ' !°- 

( Full mspiration . . . . m. 


Girth of abdomen, 
in. 


Have you your average weight? 





I have this day of , igo. _, examined the above person, and 

find that the conditions present are such that the applicant's constitution is* 

The application should bef 



Approved: 



Signature of Medical Examiner. 



Sup't of Schools. 



Committee on Manual 
Physical Training 



nual and \ 
ining : ] 



* State yi\ie)Cae.x first-class, unfavorable, or bad. 

t Fill in accepted, rejected, <y[ postponed indefinitely. 



REMARKS: 

C. N. Kendall, Superintendent. 



248 APPENDIX D 

XXX 

WORCESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
NOTICE OF PUPIL'S TRANSFER 

(To be placed in the box of the school to which the pupil is transferred) 

School 190 

Name Grade 

New Residence 

Transferred to School, Grade 

Principal 

Given at 

RETURN NOTICE OF PUPIL'S TRANSFER 

Received at School 

Name Grade 

Date 1 90 

Principal 

Receiving Principal will detach this lower half and return PROMPTLY to issuing 

Principal. 

WORCESTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

PUPIL'S TRANSFER 

(To be given to the pupil. Not valid until approved by the Superintendent) 

Given at School 190. _. 

To Age Grade 

Parent or Guardian 

Former Residence 

Newr Residence 

Last Attendance 190 

Transferred to School, Grade 

Teacher 

Principal 

Approved Superintendent of Schools 

Received 190 

Principal 

Receiving Principal will return this PROMPTLY to Superintendent's office. 



FORMS 



249 



XXXI 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO HIGH SCHOOL 



Family Name Given name 
Applies for Admission to the 
2. High School. 



Residence 



4. Date of birth- 



Month Day 

5. Name of parent (or guardian) 

6. His business address 



Month Day 


Year 


Borough 


Borough 
Age 



Year 



Years 



Months 



7. Date of applicant's last vaccination. 

8. Graduated from what school 

9. Date of graduation- 



Year 



Borough 



Month 

10. Other instruction (give dates)_ 

11. Indicate course to be taken 



Day 



Year 



12. Indicate foreign language you intend to study at the beginning of your 
course — 



13. Signature of applicant- 



14. Signature of parent or guardian. 



15. This pupil has completed the elementary course of study to the satis- 
faction of the District Superintendent, and of the Principal 

16. Signature of the Principal of P. S.__ 

1 7. Assigned to year ^ class 



-Section. 



Principal of H,S.. 



250 



APPENDIX D 



XXXII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 



ESTIMATE OF GRADUATING PUPIL'S ATTAINMENTS 



Term ending | J^'^'^^'^y 1 190 
l June J 



Borough of 

Name of pupiL 
Date of birth_ 



-District No. 



-Residence- 



-P.S.. 



ESTIMATE OF PUPIL'S ATTAINMENTS 

Note. — Satisfactory (" a," excellent; "h+," very good ; "h," good) 
" Unsatisfactory ("c,"/otfr," " A," bad) 



Class standing. 



-Principal's estimate. 



r I recommend 1 

I I do not recommend J 

Approved ] 
Disapproved J 



the said pupil for graduation from this school. 



Principal 



District Superintendent 



Indicate ability by 

a small letter in 

this column 



Put general esti- 
mates in capitals 
in this column 



I READING 

1. Amount of literature read in class during the term 

now closingi 

2. Power to interpret the. matter so read 

3. Amount of literature memorized 

4. Ability to read aloud accurately and intelligently 

new reading matter 

5. Power to give understandingly the substance of a 

paragraph, after a single reading 

6. Use of library books 

7. Power to understand and explain the meaning of 

words 

8. Skill in the use of a dictionary 

General estimate in this subject 

II GRAMMAR 

I. Ability to explain the meaning and grammatical 
structure of sentences in the usual forms 



FORMS 



251 



Indicate ability by 

a small letter in 

this column 



Put general esti- 
mates in capitals 
in this column 



2. Ability to distinguish the language forms — words, 

phrases, and clauses — to show their use and 
force in sentences of ordinary difficulty, and to 
classify them as parts of speech, etc 

3. Ability to distinguish and give the various in- 

• fleeted forms of ordinary words 

4. Ability to use a text-book as a book of reference. 

5. Power to use grammar to correct errors in the 

pupil's own discourse oral and written 

General estimate 

Ill COMPOSITION 

1. Skill in talking intelligently and grammatically 

on subjects within the pupil's knowledge 

2. Power to arrange his thoughts in order and to 

write them grammatically 

3. Ability to write from given data, letters correct in 

both form and substance 

4. Estimate of rapidity and legibility of handwriting 

General estimate 

IV SPELLING 

1. Power and habit as a speller 

2. Ability to write from dictation, paragraphs of ordi- 

nary difficulty 

3. Skill in applying rules for spelling to the inflected 

and derived forms of words 

General estimate 

V MATHEMATICS 

1. Power to use the four simple rules with reasonable 

rapidity, employing the customary short methods 

2. Ability to solve problems that involve fractions, 

common and decimal 

3. Power to solve ordinary problems, including in- 

dustrial measurements, percentage, etc 

4. Ability to analyze processes 

5. Knowledge of the metric system 

6. Ability to apply algebra and geometry to the 

solution of problems 

General estimate 

VI MANUAL TRAINING AND DRAWING 

1. Ability to draw freehand a simple group of objects 

2. Ability to make a working drawing of a given object 

3. Ability to make a design for application to a 

given space 

4. Skill in shop work 

5. Skill in sewing 

6. Skill in cooking 

General estimate 



252 



APPENDIX D 



VII HISTORY 

Knowledge of the time and sequence of events in 
United States history 

Knowledge of the main causes that have brought 
our country to its present condition 

Comprehension of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, of Washington's farewell address, and 
Lincoln's Gettysburg speech 

Knowledge of the leading events in English his- 
tory 

General estimate 



VIII CIVICS 

Knowledge of the most important provisions of 
the United States Constitution and of the organ- 
ization of state and municipal governments . . . 
General estimate 



IX GEOGRAPHY (as completed in 7B) 

1. Mastery of a school text-book 

2. Knowledge of the important physical features of 

the continents, of the United States, of New 
York State 

3. Power to locate the chief countries of the world, 

their great cities and foreign possessions, and 
to give and recognize their chief productions . . 

4. Knowledge of the chief transcontinental and 

ocean routes of commerce 

5. Knowledge of the causes of dew, rain, snow, wind, 

and other ordinary physical phenomena, and 

knowledge of the relations of place to climate . 

General estimate 

X SCIENCE 

1. Number of experiments performed by teacher in 

science 

2. Number of experiments performed by pupil in 

science 

3. Pupil's knowledge of such experiments 



XI ELECTIVES 

I. Character of work done in French, German, or 
Spanish 



Indicate ability by 

a small letter in 

this column 



Put general esti- 
mates in capitals 
in this column 



Note. — The rating of the pupil in column I should be made by the teachers of the graduat- 
ing classes, under the direction of the principal, and the general estimates in column II should 
be made by the principal. 



FORMS 253 

XXXIII 

[poster notice] 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



NOTICE TO PARENTS 



SCHOOL REGISTRATION 

All Public Schools will be open 
FOR THE ADMISSION AND TRANSFER OF PUPILS 

ON 

WEDNESDAY, September 4, THURSDAY, September 5, 

FRIDAY, September 6, 1907 

From 9 A.M. to 12 M., and from i to 3 p.m. 



RULES FOR ADMISSION 

Children under six years of age will not be received except in kinder- 
garten classes. Children under five years of age will not be admitted to 
kindergarten classes until all older children have been accommodated. 

Children who have never attended a Public School within The City of 
New York must furnish a satisfactory Certificate of Vaccination. 

Children born in The City of New York must furnish a certificate of date 
of birth from the Department of Health. 

Children born elsewhere must furnish a passport, or a baptismal certificate, 
or other satisfactory evidence showing the date of birth. 

Children who have been attending a Public School must apply to that 
school for a Transfer Card before they can be admitted to any other school. 

Transfer cards will be furnished only upon the Written or Personal 
Request of the Parent or Guardian, stating the reason for such request. 

Parents are requested to attend to the Transfer and Registration of their 
Children on September 4, 5, or 6, from 9 A.M. to 12 M. and from I to 3 P.M. 

By order of the Board of Education, 

Egerton L. Winthrop, Jr., 

President 
William H. Maxwell, 

City Superintendent of Schools 



254 



APPENDIX D 



ANNUAL BLANK B 



XXX 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF 

Report of Pupils dropped from the Department of 

For the Year ending_ 190 



SICKNESS 


SICKNESS IN FAMILY 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Third 
Year 


Fourth 
Year 


Total 


Total 
by 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Yrs. 

11 M 

F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

15 M 
F 

16 M 
F 

17 M 
F 

l3 M 
F 

19 M 
F 

20 M 
F 

Total ^ 
Total 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


Ages 


Yrs. 

11 M 

F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

15 M 
F 

16 M 
F 

17 M 
• F 

18 M 
F 

19 M 
F 

20 M 
F 

Total ^ 
Total 


M F 


M F 


INABILITY TO DO THE WORK 


TO GO TO WORK 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Third 
Year 


Fourth 
Year 


Total 


Total 
by 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Yrs. 

11 M 
F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

etc. 
Total ^ 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


Ages 


Yrs. 

11 M 
F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

etc. 
Total ^ 


M F 


M F 



Note to Principal. — Report the following departments : Mathematics, 
J. M. Greenwood, Superintendent, 



FORMS 



255 



IV 

KANSAS CITY, MO. 

in the 



.High School 
^Teacher 



FAILING EYESIGHT 


LEFT THE CITY 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Third 
Year 


Fourth 
Year 


Total 


Total 
by 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Yrs. 

11 M 

F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

15 M 
F 

16 M 
F 

17 M 
F 

18 M 
F 

19 M 
F 

20 M 
F 

Total ^ 
Total 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


Ages 


Yrs. 

11 M 

F 

12 M 

F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

15 M 

F 

l5 M 

F 

17 M 
F 

18 M 
F 

19 M 
F 

20 M 
F 

Total « 
Total 


M F 


M F 


TRANSFERRED 


UNKNOWN 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Third 
Year 


Fourth 
Year 


Total 


Total 
by 


Ages 


First 
Year 


Second 
Year 


Yrs. 

11 M 
F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

etc. 
Total " 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


M F 


Ages 


Yrs. 

11 M 
F 

12 M 
F 

13 M 
F 

14 M 
F 

etc. 

Total J" 


M F 


M F 



Science, Language (Ancient and Modern), English, History, Sociology. 

Principal. 



256 APPENDIX D 

XXXV 
Permit No 

BOARD OF EDUCATION, THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

School District No 

APPLICATION FOR NEWSBOY'S PERMIT AND BADGE 

Gentlemen : 

I hereby make application for a Newsboy's Permit and 

Badge for , living at 

I affirm that I am the (parent, guardian, custodian or "next friend") 

of said boy, and that he is years of age, having been born 

i8_-_, at in 

Signature 

Address. 

Date , i90-__ 

STATEMENT OF BOY 

I hereby state that I am years of age, having been born , i8 

at in 

Signature 

Address 

Date , 190 

SCHOOL RECORD OF BOY 
I hereby certify that living at 

according to the record of this school is years of age having been 

born 18 , and that he is now in the grade. 



Principal of School No.. . 

Date , 190. __ 



^ Registered by ^^ 



DEPARTMENToFfDUCATlON 



FORMS 



257 



XXXVI 
BOARD OF EDUCATION 



Newark, N. J., 190 

CHILDREN ON STREETS 

The following named children were found by me loitering on the streets 
and do not appear to be attending any school. 



AGE 



RESIDENCE 



PARENT 



-Precinct. 



-Police Officer. 



XXXVII 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

To the Chief Attendance Officer, Newark, N. J., igo 

City Hall. 
Dear Sir : — 

It has been ascertained by me from various sources that the fol- 
lowing named children of school age do not attend any school, or are illegally 
employed. 



Name 



Residence Age Parent or Guardian Where Employed 



Signed . 



XXXVIII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

PAROLE AND PROBATION CARD 



ATTENDANCE 


DATE 


CONDUCT 


PARENT'S SIGNATURE 











New York, 190. 



Principal 



School No. 



258 APPENDIX D 

XXXIX 

CHILD LABOR AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION LAWS 

OF OHIO 



" No child under the age of FOURTEEN years shall be employed in any 
Factory, Workshop, Mercantile, or other Establishment, directly or indirectly, 
at any time." (97 O. L., Page 321, Sec. i.) 

" No child under SIXTEEN years of age shall be employed by, or be in the 
employment of any Person, Company, or Corporation, unless such child shall 
present to such Person, Company, or Corporation, an Age and Schooling 
Certificate." 

" An Age and Schooling Certificate shall be approved only by the SUPER- 
INTENDENT OF SCHOOLS or by a person authorized by him." Sec. 
4022-2 R. S.) 

" An Age and Schoohng Certificate shall not be approved unless satisfac- 
tory evidence is furnished by the last school census, the certificate of birth, 
or of baptism, or in some such manner, that the child is of the age required 
as aforesaid." (97 O. L., Page 321, Sec. i. Passed April 23rd, 1904.) 

Age and Schooling Certificates can be obtained at the office of Clerk of 
Board of Education, third floor, City Hall. 

F. B! dyer, Supt. of Schools, Cincinnati. 

XL 

No. Attendance Report School. 

Name Age Date 

Parent Residence 

Absent. Truant. Attending no school. 

Last day attended Absent preceding week 

Times a truant this term Parent written 

Remarks : 



Principal. Teacher. 

(over.) 

Investigation completed 190 

Interviewed Father. Mother. Guardian. Pupil. 

Reported to Principal 190 

Pupil returned to school 190 

Absent sessions. Truant sessions. 

Cause for absence 

Remarks : 

BOARD OF EDUCATION _ 

NEWARK, N. J. Attendance Officer. 



FORMS ^59 



XLI 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

Newark, N. J. 



.190 

School 



TO THE ATTENDANCE OFFICER: 

Please call at the residence of ^ 

at No. and request 

(father, mother or guardian) to call on me at this school as soon as possible 
in reference to 

Reason : 

Principal. 

(over) 

Officer called on father, mother or guardian 190 

Father, mother or guardian called 190. _^ 

No. of times previously sent for 

Remarks : 



Attendance Officer. 
(over) 



XLII 
I DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

S The City of New York 

J Adm. Dis. Reg. No. 



g 
< 

yA 


Last Name 


First Name 


Residence 




n 


Name of Parent or Guardian 




2; 


Date of Birth 


Age 


>< 


Country of Birth 


When Vaccinated 




Last Day School Attended 


Year of Leaving 


< 


In what Grade were you when you left ? 


Did you Graduate ? 


'A 


Occupation 




Employer's Name 




0i 


Employer's Business Address 




Subject: ist hour 


2d hour 



26o APPENDIX D 

XLIII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

The City of New York 



City Superintendent of Schools. 

New York, 190 

This is to certify that I am the of and reside at No. in 

the borough of that said is a child between the ages of eight and 

sixteen years of age, viz., of the age of years, that he is in proper 

physical and mental condition to attend school ; that I am unable to induce 
said child to attend school, and am not now able to cause said child to be 
instructed regularly at home by a person properly qualified to instruct said 
child in reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and geog- 
raphy ; that said child is a persistent truant ; that I respectfully request that 
said child be committed to a Truant School, or similar institution for confine- 
ment, maintenance and instruction, according to law ; that I believe such a 
measure necessary for the reformation and welfare of said child. In case of 
transfer, I prefer the (Catholic Protectory) (Westchester Temporary Home). 

Witness: .Father. 

Mother. 

Guardian. 

Note. — This declaration must be signed by the father, if living, after its import has been 
thoroughly explained. 

The District Superintendent is directed to inform the parent emphatically 
to the effect that if the parent should become convinced that the child, after 
a period of confinement in a truant school or other institution, will regularly 
attend school and conform to the rules of discipline and if the parent believes 
that he is able to enforce attendance and good conduct he may apply to the 
District Superintendent for the child's parole, as this is a matter exclusively 
between the parent and the educational authorities : that the parent should 
not apply to any other person for such parole, and on no account as a client, 
apply to any lawyer or other person claiming to have influence in securing a 
parole, nor pay any fee to any such person. The Board of Education will not 
recognize or deal with any attorney in a parole case. 



FORMS 261 

XLIV 
[postal card] 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

The City of New York 

Evening School New York, 190 



You are hereby notified that your son 

aged years, has been absent from 

Evening School sessions during the past week. Under the 

Compulsory Education Law, he is required to be regular in his attendance 
and correct in conduct. This matter should receive your immediate attention. 



Principal. 

Chapter 671, Laws of 1894, as Amended 1903, Section 3: 

Every boy between fourteen and sixteen years of age, who is engaged in any useful 
employment or service in a city of the first class and who has not completed such course of 
study as is required for graduation from the elementary public schools of such city, and who 
does not hold either a certificate of graduation from the public elementary school or the pre- 
academic certificate issued by the regents of the university of the state of New York or the 
certificate of the completion of an elementary school issued by the department of public in- 
struction, shall attend the public evening schools of such city, or other evening schools offer- 
ing an equivalent course of instruction, for not less than six hours each week for a period of 
not less than sixteen weeks in each school year or calendar year. 



XLV 
NOT VACCINATED 

Holyoke, Mass., igo 

To the Superintendent of Schools : 

I hereby certify that 

residence is not a fit subject for vaccination. 

Signed 

Laws of Massachusetts, 1894 ; Chapter 515, Section 2 : All children who shall 
present a certificate signed by a regular practicing physician that they are unfit subjects for 
vaccination shall not be subject to the provisions of Section 9 of Chapter 47 of the Public 
Statutes excluding unvaccinated children from public schools, and all children upon such a 
certificate shall be exempted from the provisions of this act, and the parents and guardians 
of such children shall not be liable to the penalties imposed by Section i of this act. 



262 APPENDIX D 

XLVI 
[postal cards] 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 

rgo 

TO EMPLOYER OF 

This child has left school with the necessary record to enable h to 
obtain a certificate of employment from the Board of Health in accordance 
with law. The child's name cannot be discharged from the register of the 
school until the principal has been assured that he is actually employed. 
Will you kindly return this card properly filled out over your signature ? 
Your prompt attention to this request will facilitate the keeping of correct 
records, and will save the child the inconvenience of an investigation by the 
attendance officer. 

The Compulsory Education Law requires that this child between 14 and 
16 years of age shall be employed or at school. If he should be dis- 
charged by you, will you kindly notify me of the fact at once ? 

Principal School No. 



.190 



This is to certify that I have this day taken into my employ . 



The business i&. 



Employer. 
Place of employment 



PRINCIPAL OF SCHOOL No. 



BOROUGH OF. 



NEW YORK 



FORMS 



263 



XLVII 

BOARD OF EDUCATION 

REPORT OF DJRECTOR OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION 

Newark, N. J., 190 

To THE City Superintendent, 

Dear Sir : — I herewith respectfully submit my report of the work of the 

Attendance Department for the month ending 190 



No. of cases of Truancy reported by Principals 
« <• « « Absence " " " 

(c <i i< <i Attending no school reported by Principals 
it it « « Truancy, etc., reported by Principals of other schools 
« <i « « Xruancy, etc., reported by Police 
" " " " " " " through other sources 

Visits to Schools, Homes, Stores and Factories by Director of Compulsory 
Education 
" " Public Schools by Attendance Officers 
" " Other " " " " 

" " Homes " " " (a) On account of Truancy 

(b) " " " Absence 

(c) " " " Attending 

no school 
Parents warned by Director of Compulsory Education by letter 
" personally warned by Director of Compulsory Education 
" " " " Attendance Officers 

Legal notices served 

Truants returned to public schools by Attendance Officers 
Absentees " " " " " " " 

Non-attendants placed in public schools by " " 

Truants, absentees, etc., returned to other schools by Attendance Officers 
Children found on the street and taken home by Attendance Officers 

" " " " " " " to school by " " 

No. of parents summoned to Police Court 
No. of prosecutions of Parents and Guardians 
" " " " " " " with conviction, (a) Fined 

(b) Paroled 
No. of prosecutions of Truants 
" " " " " with conviction, (a) Sent to City Home 

(b) Sent to State Reforma- 
tories 
(c). Paroled 
No. of Truants recommended for Ungraded Schools 
" " " transferred to " " 

Transfer cards investigated by Attendance Officers 

No. of children between the ages of seven and twelve years excused from at- 
tending school by reason of physical or mental incapacity or other causes 
No. of cases investigated for Police Department 
" " permits and badges issued to newsboys 



Signed 



A. B. Poland, Superintendent. 



Director of Compulsory Education. 



264 APPENDIX D 

XLVIII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

Case o£ 

Hearing on 



Office of District Superintendent 

Districts 

190 

City Superintendent of Schools. 
Dear Sir : 

I have the honor to report upon the case of 

age ,a pupil of Residence 

Complaint was made on 190 , by 

Summons was issued to accused and to the persons in parental relation, viz. : 

and [ 

There were present at the hearing on 190 

From the evidence produced, including the school record, the work of the 
attendance officer, and the testimony given, I am convinced that the said 
child is 



and I therefore recommend that the said 

be 

All the papers in the case are herewith transmitted. 

Respectfully, 



District Superintendent. 
RECOMMENDATION OF ASSOCIATE CITY SUPERINTENDENT 



Associate City Superintendent. 
190 



FORMS 



265 



XLIX 

CiTV AND State of New York, ) 

> SS»' 
County of New York, ) 

, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he resides at 

No. in the Borough of in The City of New York, and that he is one of the 

attendance officers of said city, duly appointed under the provisions of an Act entitled, " An 
Act to Provide for the Compulsory Education of Children," Chapter 671 of the Laws of 1894, 
as amended. 

That is the person in parental relation to to wit, the of said 

That said is a child between the ages of eight and sixteen years, to wit, 

years and months, and is, and at all times hereinafter mentioned was, as deponent is 

informed and verily believes, in proper physical and mental condition to attend school. 

That since the day of .190 , said child, as deponent is informed by the 

school authorities and verily believes, has not been regularly attending upon instruction in 

accordance with the provisions of said Compulsory Education Law, but on of the. 

school days from said day of 190 , to 190 , said child has been a 

truant from instruction. 

That on 190 , deponent notified the of said child that said child was 

not attending upon instruction, and informed the said of those provisions of said 

law which require persons in parental relation to a child between the ages of eight and six- 
teen years to cause such child to attend upon instruction. 

That from said day of- 190 , to the day of 190 , said 

has neglected to comply with said law, and has failed to cause said child to regularly attend 
upon instruction in accordance with said law, said child having been a truant from instruc- 
tion, as deponent is informed by the school authorities and verily believes, during the whole 
of said period except- 

Deponent further says that said has not presented to the school authorities proof 

by affidavit that he is unable to compel said child to attend upon instruction in accordance 
with said law. 



Sworn to before me this — 
day of 190 



Attendance Officer, 



5 Di 



W 



H >- 



2 -S 
. "ft 



s - . 

0) jj 

^ - S 

O «« m 
tn 

I § ^ 

+3 2 00 

C] -H M 

o o to 

!> =! & 



266 



APPENDIX D 



No. 11 SAINT LOUIS BOARD 
Annual Report of the Evening 



Table I 
AGES OF PUPILS 



Table II 
OCCUPATION OF PUPILS 



No. 12 years old 

16 

18 
19 



23 

24 

Total 

Average age 

(see note) 



Girls 



Boys 



From the Four Quarterly 
Reports 

Total 

Average number belonging . . 
Average daily Attendance . , 
Per cent of Attendance . , 
Average No. Pupils to Teacher 
Average No. Teachers . . . , 

Cases of Tardiness 

Times Readmitted 

Times Absent 



Total 



Apprentices 
Bakers . . 
Barbers 
Barkeepers 
Basketmakers 
Blacksmiths 
Bookbinders 
Boxmakers 
Bricklayers 
Brushmakers 
Butchers . . 
Cabinet Makers 
Candymakers 
Carpenters 
Carriagemakers 
Cash Boys 
Cigarmakers 
Clerks . . 
Coppersmiths 
Dentists . 
Druggists . 
Engineers . 
Engravers 
Errand Boys 
Factory Boys 
Finishers . . 
Foundry Boys 
German Schools 
Glassworkers 
Grocers . . 
Gasfitters . . 
Harnessmakers 
Hucksters . • 
Ironworkers . 
Jewellers . 
Laborers . 
Machinists . 



Total 



Masons . . 
Manufacturers 
Mechanics 
Millers . , 
Moulders 
News Carriers 
Office Boys 
Painters . 
Photographers 
Plasterers . 
Plumbers . 
Porters . . 
Printers 
Saddlers . 
Shoemakers 
Store Boys 
Tailors . . 
Teamsters 
Tinners 
Tobacconists 
Trunkmakers 
Waiters 
Whiteners 
Miscellaneous 
No occupation 
Total Males 



FEMALES 

Dressmakers 

House Girls 

Laundresses 

Milliners . 

Nurses . . 

Saleswomen 

Seamstresses 

Miscellaneous 
Total Females 
Total . . . 



Total 



F. Louis Soldan, Superintendent. 



FORMS 



267 



OF EDUCATION 

School for the Year ending. 



189 



Table III 
BIRTHPLACE OF PUPILS 



Table IV 
CHARACTER OF ATTENDANCE 



Saint Louis 

Missouri (without St. Louis) 

Illinois 

Other States of the Union 

Ireland 

Other Parts of Great Britain 

Germany 

Italy 

Russia 

Other Foreign Countries . 

Unknown 

Total 



Total 



( Whole Number of School Days, bd) 
No. of pupils who attended 60 nights . 



Total Number of Pupils 
Total Number Registered 



50 


" to 60 


40 


" to 50 


30 


" to 40 


20 


" to 30 


ID 


" to 20 


less 


than 10 


d 



NAMES OF PUPILS 

WHO MERIT DIPLOMAS FOR PUNCTUAL 

ATTENDANCE, DILIGENCE IN STUDY, 

AND CORRECT DEPORTMENT 



Note. — In making out the Average 
Age in Table I. 

ist. Multiply the number of pupils 
given by the corresponding age. 

2d. Add up. 

3d. Divide the sum of products by 
the total number of pupils. 



Respectfully submitted, 



Principal 



268 



APPENDIX D 



LI 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



OFFICE OF CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 

Park Avenue and Fifty-Ninth Street 



To the Attendance Officers of the City of New York, or any one of them, and to the , 

Truant School 

WHEREAS, a child between eight and sixteen years of age, namely, . 

years, in proper physical and mental condition to attend school, has been charged on the 

affidavit of an Attendance Officer, with being an habitual truant from instruction upon 

which he is lawfully required to attend, insubordinate or disorderly during h attendance 
upon instruction, irregular in school attendance; 

AND WHEREAS, reasonable notice and an opportunity to be heard have been given to 
said child and to the person in parental relation to said child, and said person has pre- 
sented proof by affidavit that he is unable to compel said child to attend upon instruction 

and has given h consent in writing to have said child committed to the Truant School, 

or to an Orphans' Home, or similar institution authorized by the Compulsory Education Law, 

namely, for A PERIOD OF TWO YEARS, and agrees to accept the rules and 

regulations of the Board of Education of The City of New York in regard to the confinement, 
discipline, instruction and discharge of said child; 

AND WHEREAS, the charges of said Attendance Officer have been established to my sat- 
isfaction by the records of Public School and the evidence adduced before me ; 

NOW, THEREFORE, pursuant to the authority vested in me by said Compulsory Edu- 
cation Law is hereby ordered to attend the and be confined and main- 
tained therein under such rules and regulations as the school authorities may prescribe for A 
PERIOD OF TWO YEARS. 

AND THESE ARE TO COMMAND YOU, the Attendance Officers of The City of New 

York or any one of you, to convey to the said institution the said for confinement, 

maintenance and instruction with a view to h improvement and restoration as provided by 
the Compulsory Education Law. 



New York, 190 



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City Superintendent 0/ Schools. 






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FORMS 



269 



LII 
WEEKLY REPORT RECREATION CENTRE NO. 
BOROUGH OF 



DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 

Report of Recreation Centre No. 

for the week ending 



190 



REGISTRATION : Boys. 



Girls, 



Total, 



NOTE.— In rating teachers on this sheet the abbreviations should be used as follows: 
Meritorious: A (highest grade), B+, B. Non-meritorious: C (inferior), D (deficient). 

When the principal's estimate of a teacher's ability to instruct or to discipline is less than 
B, a detailed report is required. 

The principals are to report upon the work and attendance of all teachers, regular and 
special (except substitutes), who have been employed during any portion of the term. 



Monday, 

Tuesday, 

Wednesday, 

Thursday, 

Friday, 

Saturday, 

Aggregate, 
Average, 



Boys. 



NAMES 

The names of teachers are 
to be written in alphabetical 
order, surnames first. Oppo- 
site each name, place the sub- 
ject taught. 

Present 



ATTENDANCE 
Girls 



TEACHERS 

ATTENDANCE 
Absent Late . 



Total. 



-Dis. 



RATING 
Inst_ 



Signed. 



Principal 



2/0 



APPENDIX D 



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FORMS 



271 



LIV 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, The City of New York 



190. _. 



PUBLIC LECTURES 

Borough of Report of 

For day 

Centre visited 

I. REMARKS AS TO BUILDING: 

(a) Is auxiliary stairway necessary; if so, was it open and lighted? 
(3) External advertisements of lecture : 

1. Bulletin boards and lecture placards; 

2. Transparencies on building or adjoining lamp posts; 

3. Lecture lanterns or lamps at entrance; 

(c) Heating, lighting, and cleanliness of building and surroundings ; 

(d) Equipment of centre, piano, lantern, screen, platform, pointer, signal; 
II, REMARKS AS TO JANITOR: 

Refer to cooperation of Janitor and Local Superintendent and the general cleanliness of 
the building. 

III. REMARKS AS TO OPERATOR AND LANTERN: 
(Promptness, accuracy, neatness, care of lantern.) 

IV. REMARKS AS TO LOCAL SUPERINTENDENT IN CHARGE: 

(His manner of introducing lecturer; his executive and disciplinary ability, and system; 
spirit shown in his work; personality, etc., etc.) 
V. REMARKS AS TO THE CENTRE VISITED: 

(Nature and size of audience; general atmosphere; interest and attention manifested; 
orderliness; general character of neighborhood, etc.) 
VI. REMARKS AS TO LECTURE AND LECTURER: 

I. Presence, manner, etc. 2. Presentation of subject. 3. Nature and character of 

illustration. 

Respectfully submitted. 



Inspector of Lectures. 



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2/2 



APPENDIX D 



LV 
PROGRAMME FOR MANUAL TRAINING 
Half- Year Beginning igo- 



.School Centre. 





8:45 to 10:15 A.M. 


10:30 to 12:00 A.M. 


1:30 to 3:00 P.M. 


Day 


School 


Room 
and 
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Grade 

and 
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No. 


School 


Room 
and 
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Grade 

and 
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No. 


School 


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and 
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No. 


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Tuesday 

"Wednesday 

Thursday 

Friday 

























LVI 
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



PUBLIC LECTURES 



Course of_ 



REPORT OF LECTURER 
lectures on 



at 

beginning- 



-; ending- 



What was the general character of your audiences ?_ 



Mention any evidences of responsiveness on the part of your auditors- 



Was any reading done in connection with the course ?_ 



What books were suggested for reading 



Was any opportunity for questions and quiz afforded after the lecture ?_ 



Was any examination held > 

Give your opinion of the general effect of this course. 



If the lectures were illustrated, in what manner ?_ 



New York,. 



.190- 



Lecturer 



FORMS 273 



LVII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



OFFICE OF THE CITY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS 



P. S. Bor. Kgtner's name 

Report of Kindergarten Mothers' Meetings for the year ending. 



DATE OF TOPICS PRESENTED BY WHOM 

1. Oct 

2. Nov 

3. Dec 

4. Jan 

5. Feb 

6. Mar. 

7. Apr 

8. May 

9. June 



1. Star most successful topics. 

2. Special features introduced. 

3. Do you circulate books * among mothers ? Name any of special interest. 

4. Is "telling a story" a feature of each meeting ? 

5. How have mothers assisted in the meetings ? 

6. Has a Union or Club been organized ? How does it work ? 

7. Approximate number of visits in the homes of the children. 

8. Results of home calls in special instances. 

9. Suggestions for future work. 

* Note the following helpful books on the Library and the Supplemental Lists. 



Fundamentals of Child Study, Kirkpatrick, (See p. 146 in Library L 

The Education of Man, Froebel, " 134 " 

Mother Play, Mottoes and Commentaries, Froebel, " 149 " 

Montaigne's Views on the Education of Children, Rector, _ " 145 " 

Leonard and Gertrude, Pestalozzi, " 144 " 

Studies of Childhood, Sully, " 146 " 

Place of the Story in Early Education, Wiltsie, " 149 " 

BOOKS ON THE SUPPLEMENTAL LIST (1906) 

The Child, Tanner, (See p. 13) 

How to Tell Stories, Bryant, " 11 

BOOKS ON THE SUPPLEMENTAL LIST (1907) 

Notes on the Early Training of Children, Malleson, " ? 

Mother Stories, Lindsay, " ? 

More Mother Stories, Lindsay, " ? 



St.) 



274 



APPENDIX D 



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History 

Biography . 

Travel 

Poetry 

Literature . 

Philosophy 

Science 

Art . . , 


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FORMS 275 



LIX 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



INSTRUCTIONS TO PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS IN RECREATION 
CENTRES 

1. The principal has entire charge of the centre and failure on the part of any teacher to 
accept instructions or obey orders should be reported to the superintendent in charge. 

2. Differences of opinion may be submitted in writing to Miss Whitney, district superin- 
tendent in charge of vacation schools, playgrounds and recreation centres. 

3. It is the duty of principals and teachers to be present in the recreation centres during 
the entire time they are in session. They are not permitted to leave during this time, nor to 
spend any of it in office work. 

4. All teachers must understand that they are to work for the success of the centre as 
a whole and not confine themselves to their specialty, and should be willing at all times to 
assist in whatever department the principal may assign them. 

5. Principals and teachers are not assigned for a stated period at any one place, but are 
continued according to the work accomplished, and may be transferred or have their services 
discontinued at any time. 

6. Principals may call a meeting of their teachers at any time, not during recreation cen- 
tre period, if said meetings do not conflict with meetings called by the superintendent or 
supervisors. 

7. Take a complete inventory of all gymnastic apparatus and all other materials immedi- 
ately, and again at the end of the season, with condition of each piece, as usable, needing 
repair, damaged irreparably. 

Mats and bucks should be put under shelter during a rain, and also at night. 

8. A leader should be placed in charge of all loose material, such as ring-toss, etc. Take 
his name and address, and make him feel the responsibility resting on him. 

9. Use judgment in selecting places for certain games {e.g., ring-toss in a narrow alley 
that can be used for nothing else), and never allow any boy or set of boys to use any game over 
a specified time if others are waiting to use it. This refers especially to basket-ball; never 
allow indiscriminate practice. 

10. Make an effort toward organizing sections or clubs of six to ten boys each, placing as 
leader, whenever possible, one of the members of the representative team of last year, and 
have certain times for each team to exercise on the apparatus, play basket-ball, and go to the 
library for reading or quiet games and to the club room. Make two lists of their names, one 
to be posted in a conspicuous place, the other for the leader of the club or team. Fix the 
exact time for this club to have the exclusive use of certain places, games or apparatus, and 
try to keep them together for from forty minutes to two hours, and from night to night 
throughout the season. Under no circumstances should an immoral boy be selected as a 
leader. Have a star or some letter for the leaders' shirts, so that they may be easily distin- 
guished from the other boys. 



2/6 



APPENDIX D 



11. No dangerous exercises are to be given nor is apparatus to be used without a teacher 
or responsible leader. 

12. While the gymnastics are going on, the assistant or athlete, if not directly engaged, 
should make a tour of the diflerent yards to see that everything is in order, and when the 
athlete is in charge of the games the gymnast or assistant should do the same. 

The success of the principal in a recreation centre will be judged more by his ability as 
an organizer than by the production of a champion team or by his personal ability as a per- 
former. There will be a contest of representative teams during the last week of the season, 
and later, probably, contests of head gymnasts, assistants, and athletes. 

13. The principal is required to call the attendants of the recreation centre together and 
give them a five or ten minutes' talk. 

14. In every well-managed recreation centre there should be a leaders' class of from six 
to forty boys, who have a definite time to meet for review of the week's programme or for 
conference, when they should be taught how to handle their classes, keep them moving, and 
keep them interested and in line. 

When the hour for apparatus, marching, and free work arrives, the principal or head 
gymnast blows a whistle and lines up all the boys. The command " Leaders, step out," is 
then given, when all the leaders step six paces to the front, and the sections are formed, put- 
ting, if necessary, two, three or four leaders in one section, but appointing one leader only to 
take charge of each section. The apparatus has been roped or chalked off from the rest pf 
the playground, and no one is allowed within certain limits unless in some section. No sec- 
tion should ever contain more than ten boys. After telling the leader of each section to which 
piece of apparatus to march his class, the head gymnast gives the command, " To the appara- 
tus, march," when the leaders march their sections opposite the pieces of apparatus assigned. 
The head gymnast now blows the whistle, and all begin work immediately. Between fifty and 
two hundred boys are now exercising at the same time on different pieces of apparatus, so 
placed that the several sections do not interfere. 

Some sections get through the given exercises quicker than others, but the leader keeps 
them moving by reviewing the exercises they did not get so well. At the end of about ten 
minutes the whistle is blown three times. The leaders immediately stop whatever movement 
they may be doing, and put in the closing exercises, which is always an easy, quick move- 
ment, repeating it a dozen times, if necessary — e.g., if in the first series, the squad on the 
vaulting bar puts in the continuous run under and back in very quick time ; on the parallels, 
the bicycle run across, stiff arms, following each other quickly ; on the horizontal bar, jump 
for bar, swing off for distance ; on the buck, ordinary straddle vault over in fast time. The 
same order is followed on all the apparatus for about one and a half to two minutes. The 
whistle now blows twice and the squads march to the next piece of apparatus assigned them, 
and line up ready for exercise. At one whistle all sections begin work, and so on. 

At the close of the schedule time the sections line up one after the other, each behind its 
leader, forming one class, and commence a run for five or ten minutes, forming different fig- 
ures, when they are dismissed. If it is the time for them to leave the playground, the leaders 
may continue the run to the street ; if not, ranks are broken, and they go to free play or 
whatever else the programme calls for. 

15. The age limit for all gymnastic, basket-b^l, and other contests is fifteen years ; the 
weight limit is one hundred and fifteen pounds. If any boy over these limits is encouraged 
to try for the teams, the principal will be held responsible. 



City Superintendent of Schools. 



FORMS 



277 



LX 

EVENING RECREATION CENTRE 

Location New York 

LITERARY CLUB PROGRAM 



Club. 



Hour. 



Attendance. 



Date. 



.(Boys or Girls) 



Business 



Roll Call 

Secretary's Report 
Treasurer's Report 
Reading of Next Program 
Election of New Members 

P.M. 



9- 
10. 



Election of Officers 
Report of Committees 
Unfinished Business 
New Business 
Adjournment 

Room No. 



Subject 

Literary Critique 

Essay 

Oration 

Recitation 



Extempore Dialogue_ 
Mock Trial 



Speaker 



Dramatics_ 

Journal 

Study 

Subject 

Discussion. 



Lecture or Address. 



Debate Resolved. 



.Affirmative 



Negative 



Discussion. 



Decision of 
Judges 



Secretary 



.Principal of School 



.Club Teacher 



2/8 



APPENDIX D 



LXI 
NEW YORK 



Vacation School No.. 

Date of Excursion 

Place 



EXCURSION REPORT 



No. of Boys 

No. of Girls 

Excursion Leader 

Vacation School Principal 

Do you consider the excursion successful ?_ 
Give reason for your answer 



LXII 

Note. — This blank, properly filled out, is to be forwarded to Miss E. E. Whitney, District 
Superintendent, at the close of each week during the season. 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 
The City of New York 

Statement by days of the number of persons using bath during the week 

beginning Sunday, 190 , and ending Saturday, 190 

P. S. No.__ Number of baths 

Number of bathers that may be accommodated at any one time ; 
Boys' bath Girls' bath Total 





MORNING 


AFTERNOON 


EVENING 


Sunday 


BOYS 


GIRLS 


BOYS 


GIRLS 


BOYS 


GIRLS 


Monday 
Tuesday 


























Wednesday 














Thursday 














Friday 














Saturday 




























Total 















Morning Attendant 

Afternoon Attendant. 
Evening Attendant 



.Present. 



.Abs. 



_Late. 



Principal. 



FORMS 279 

LXIII 

New York, , 190 

REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE BANDMASTER 

AT THE 

Roof Playground No Borough of 

For the Week Ending 

Name of Bandmaster 

Number of Assistant Musicians 

Number of Selections Played Each Night 

Time Spent in Playing Each Night 

Character of Music 

Service of Band . _ — _ . 

(Here state whether satisfactory or not) 

Requirements of Contract Filled 



(Signed)- 



Principal. 



LXIV 
MEDICAL INSPECTION OF SCHOOLS 

190 

To THE Parent or Guardian : 



a pupil in the. School 

has been found to be suffering with 



and in accordance with the regulations of this Board is sent home for medi- 
cal care. 

Please call the attention of your physician to the case. Further attendance 
at school is prohibited until complete recovery. 

Board of Education, 

Medical Inspector No. , 

Newark, N. J. 



280 APPENDIX D 

^ . T.- • , LXV 

To the Principal : 

Please fill out the accompanying blank and return to me as soon as pos- 
sible after April 1st, not later than April 15th. 

The information is to be used in making up returns to the State Superin- 
tendent of Schools. 

Please answer every question without fail. 



Number of pupils registered in \ SP""g ^"d summer terms* 
I Fall and winter terms 



3. Average number attending I SP"ng ^nd summer terms . . . _._ 

( Fall and winter terms . . . . 

4. Number different pupils registered from April i, 1906, to April i, 1907 

9. Have you a flag ? 

13. Numberof male teachers employed during I pnnga 

( Fall and winter terms . 

14. Number offemale teachers employed during I P"^ & 

( Fall and winter terms . 

15. Number of teachers who have been examined and certificated as 

required by law 

16. Number of teachers who are graduates of Normal or Training Schools 

17. Number of teachers who hold State certificates — 

19. Number of teachers who have attended Summer Schools for Teachers 

33. Number of boys pursuing grammar school studies ? . Girls ? 

34.**Number of boys physically incapacitated for doing common school 

work? Girls? 

35. Number of boys mentally incapacitated for doing common school 

work? Girls? 

38. Number of pupils conveyed ? 

42. Have you a library ? 

43. Number of volumes in this library 

44. Were these books provided mainly through the efforts of pupils ? . 

45. Value of all schoolroom and schoolyard improvements made during 

the past year and NOT paid for from town appropriations ? . 

46. Was your school an active branch of the School Improvement League ? 

47. Was instruction in physiology with regard to the evil effects of nar- 

cotics and stimulants on the human system given in your school ? 

49. How many different teachers were employed in your school ? . . 

50. How many teachers were continued in the same school for the year ? 

51. How many had previous experience ? 

* If summer terms are maintained include record of attendance in spring 

term ; also combine fall and winter terms. 

** Deaf, blind, cripples, sick. 

Portland, Maine. 



FORMS 



281 



LXVI 

CITY OF CLEVELAND 

TEACHER'S ABSTRACT FROM DAILY REGISTER 

FOR MONTHLY REPORTS. 1907-1908 
School. Grade 



Teacher. 



FILL ALL THE BLANKS, USING INK 



For the Several Months Ending 



Whole Number Registered, less the Number of Trans- 
fers to other Rooms 

No. remaining as stated in Last Report 

For September, use Number remaining at close of sec- 
ond week 

ACCESSIONS 

No. entered during the month {Neiu Pupils) 

No. of Pupils reentered 

No. received by Transfer from other rooms in this 
house 

LOSSES 

No. withdrawn, either temporarily or permanently 

No. lost by Transfer to other rooms in this house 

(All the items above include both boys and girls) 

Does your Transfer Record (see reverse page) corre- 
spond with those of teachers to or from whom 
transfers have been made? 

( Boys 

No. remaining at date < Girls 

( Total 

CHANGES FROM DISTRICT TO DISTRICT 

No. of Pupils received from other Districts within the 
city on account of transfer or removal 

(These pupils are also included in item [i] under Ac- 
cessions as heretofore.) 

No. of Pupils withdraivn on account of transfer or re- 
moval to other districts 

(These pupils are also included in item [i] under 
Losses as heretofore.) 

ATTENDANCE 
Whole No. Days Attendance 
Whole No. Days Absence 
Whole No. Cases Tardiness 

Per cent of Daily Absence — based on number be- 
longing 
Total Monthly Enrolment, Boys 
Average number belonging. 
Average Daily Attendance, " 
Average Daily Absence, " 

Total Monthly Enrolment, Girls 
Average number belonging, " 
Average Daily Attendance, " 
Average Daily Absence, " 

Total Monthly Enrolment, Boys and Girls 
Average number belonging, " " " 
Average Daily Attendance, " " " 
Average Daily Absence, " " " 

No. Days your School has been in Session this Month 

SS^ Note. — To be kept on file in the Principal's office. 



282 APPENDIX D 

LXVII 
Truancy Report 

History of Child 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



Name of child. 
Residence 



Date of birth_ 



Place of birth 

Name of parent. 



(Indicate stepfather or stepmother) 



Religion. 



Physical condition- 



Home conditions. 



Number of children in family Boys Girls. 

Influences tending to truancy . 



Schools attended during past five months. 
Last grade attended 



Attendance past five months : Present days. Absent days. 

Previous school history 



Attendance officer. 



-1 90 



District Superintendent. 



Note. — This report is to be made out in duplicate; the original to be sent to the office of 
the Associate City Superintendent with commitment paper, the duplicate to be kept on file in 
the office of the District Superintendent. 



FORMS 



285 




284 



APPENDIX D 





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285 



LXX 

OBSERVATIONS ON CHILD 

PROPOSED FOR AN UNGRADED CLASS 



P.S._ 



Borough_ 



Name_ 



Address. 



Age_ 



_Grade_ 



Precocious — normal — altricious (for race and sex) 

Home conditions Nationality 

School attendance — . _ 



Cause of any irregularity. 



Health. 



General appearance. 
Psychical rate 



General intelligence- 
Disposition 

Habits 



Psychical field- 
Efficiency 



_Behavior_ 



Variances from normaL 
Observation 



.Attention. 



Oral expression. 
Number 



.Reading. 



-Hand-work. 



-Memory 

Writing. 



Special tastes 

Any other information- 



Date. 



.190 



Principal. 



286 



APPENDIX D 



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FORMS 287 

LXXII 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS ATHLETIC LEAGUE 
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



CLASS ATHLETICS 

CLASS ATHLETICS is a device by which every boy, physically fit, may enter 
any athletic event and, if he does his best, feel that he is helping his class to win, 
even though he may not be good in the event in which his class is entered. In 
this form of athletics, a trophy is won, or a record is made, not by the individual ^ 
record of a boy, but by the average of the individual records of the boys in a class. 
This plan has been tried in several boroughs of this city, and it has met with 
marked success. In many large schools practically every boy has entered, arous- 
ing great interest in athletics. 

Trophies will be awarded in this borough by the P. S. A. L. for the best class 
records in Standing Broad Jump, Pull Up, or " Chinning," and Running; one each 
for sth, 6th, 7th, and 8th year classes. 

The records are found as follows : 

Jumping. The class is taken by the teacher, or some one assigned by the prin- 
cipal, to the yard, the street, a vacant lot, or any suitable place. It is better to line 
the boys up in the order in which they are to jump, as it prevents confusion. Each 
boy jumps, taking three jumps if he wishes, and his best jump is recorded. The 
class record is found by adding the individual records, and dividing by the num- 
ber of boys entered. 

Pull Up. An inclined ladder is ideal for the pull up, or a bar may be fitted 
into a doorway, or the horizontal bar in the gymnasium may be used. The boy 
must pull himself up till his chin is over the bar, and then lower himself the full 
length of his arms. This he does as many times as he can. He must not touch 
the floor with his feet when he lowers himself. The number of times he pulls him- 
self up is his record. The class record is found as above. 

Running. The distances are: sth year, 40 yd.; 6th year, 50 yd.; 7th year, 
60 yd. ; Sth year, 80 yd. There is a difficulty in taking the individual records of 
boys. In many schools four or five hundred boys will run. Long before the 
records of any such number of boys can be taken, most stop watches will give out. 
On this account the following method has been adopted : 

The boys are lined up in the order in which they are to run. The timer, who 
acts also as starter, stands by the finishing line, his watch in his left hand and his 
handkerchief in his right. When ready, he slowly raises his handkerchief, then 
waves it downward with a quick motion, at the same instant starting his watch ; this 
is the signal for boy No. i to start and for No. 2 to step up to the starting line. As 
boy No. I nears the finishing line, the timer raises the handkerchief slowly as a 
■warning to No. 2, and at the instant No. i crosses the finishing line, the handker- 
chief is again quickly waved downward, No. 2 starts and No. 3 steps to the start- 
ing line. In the same way every boy is started, and as the last boy crosses the 
finishing line the watch is stopped. The record is found by dividing the elapsed 
time, as shown by the watch, by the number of boys that race. 

If an ordinary watch is used, start the first boy when the second hand is over the 
sixty mark, and proceed as before. 



288 APPENDIX D 



GENERAL REGULATIONS 

For any class to enter for a trophy, not less than 80% of the enrolment for the 
month in which the record is taken, must take part. The number taking part 
must not be less than eight. 

Events will occur as follows : Standing Broad Jump, in the fall ; Pull Up, in the 
winter ; Running, in the spring. 

Records are to be sent in for : 

Standing Broad Jump, not later than December ist. 

Pull Up, not later than March ist. 

Running, not later than June ist. 

Distances for Running : 5th year, 40 yd. ; 6th year, 50 yd. ; 7th year, 60 yd. ; 8th 
year, 80 yd. 

Jumping must be from a line. Many schools cannot have a " take off" without 
considerable inconvenience. 

In Class Athletics the P. S. A. L. places no restrictions upon the boys except- 
ing physical fitness. 

In jumping give the record in feet and inches, carrying the inches out to ten- 
thousandths. Carry out other records in the same way. This is to prevent ties. 

When the records are all in, the three classes having the best records will be 
finally tested by the P. S. A. L. If the record then made is better than any record 
sent in, the trophy will be awarded to the class making this record. If, however, 
this record is not as good as some not included in the three selected, then the 
classes will be tested in the order of their records, until one is made that is better 
than any not tested. 

The trophies are perpetual. They are in the form of a shield, a brass tablet 
being put upon each, showing what school won it at each competition. This 
school will hold it until it is won by some other school. The school winning a 
trophy will receive an engraved certificate which becomes its property. It is hoped 
that souvenirs can be given to each member of winning classes. 

SUGGESTIONS 

Have class trials occasionally before taking final records. They will arouse 
interest in the contests. 

Encourage the boys to practise by themselves in the yard, on the street, at home, 
■ or elsewhere. 

,. Write the boys' names upon the blackboards, if you have the space ; if not, vwite 
the names upon a sheet of paper and pin it up. Enter the boys' records as they 
' bring them to you. 

A woman should not be afraid to take hold of this form of athletics. It is not how 
far the boys can jump ; it is getting them to want to jump. This a woman can do 
as well as a man, perhaps better. 
Send all records and communications relating to Class Athletics to 

Assistant Director Physical Training, 

Jamaica, N.Y. 

Principals will confer a favor by giving a copy of this circular to teachers having 
boys' or mixed classes. 



FORMS 



289 



LXXIII 

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

VACCINATION BLANK 

Parents who wish their children vaccinated at the school are requested to 
fill out and sign this blank and return it to the principal of the school. Please 
read the explanation on the back of this notice. 

Si. Louis, 



/ desire, and hereby authorize, thai tny child, be vaccinated by 

the Physician of the Board of Health at his next call at the School. 

Respectfully, 



LXXIV 
MEDICAL REPORT UPON DEFECTIVE PUPIL 



New York 

Special Examination 

Name 



Physical Condition 

Blood 

Eyes 

Ears 

Teeth 

Palate 



Tongue 

Asymmetry- 
Forehead 



Facial Appearance- 
Bodily Deformity — 

Temperament 

Nerve Signs 

Posture 

Comment : 



P. S.,- 



Dist.- 



DATE- 

Age 



Motor Control 

Promptness 

Inhibition 



Coordination- 
Prehension — 
Enunciation- 
Gait . 



Abstract Mentality 

Attention — _ 

Comprehension 

Judgment: Reason 

Number Work 

Memory 

School Record 



I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 II 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 



Recommendation : 



290 



APPENDIX D 







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291 



LXXVI 
VOUCHER SCHEDULE 
BOARD OF EDUCATION) 



OF 

The City of New York 



To. 



as Comptroller of the City of New York 



190 

For Deductions appearing on 

Roll 

In favor of 

P. S. No. 

Amount of roll 



Deduction for Absence 
Deduction for i per cent 
Total Deduction 



CREDIT 

Public School Teachers' Retirement Fund 



I have examined this claim and 
certify that it is correct as to facts, 
calculations, and extensions. 



Bookkeeper, Board of Education. 



Chap. 466, Laws 1901, 
Sec. 1092, as amended by 
Chap. 56i, Laws of 1905. 



It is hereby certified, That the deduction from the salaries of teachers, etc., 

as above specified, 

amounting to dollars, 

have been examined and audited, and are chargeable to the appropriation for 
the year 190 , entitled General School Fund, Borough of Queens, and it is 
further certified that said deductions are in conformity with the By-Laws and 
Regulations of the Board of Education and The Greater New York Charter. 

Dated, " 

Auditor of the Board of Education. 



New York, iqo 

Received of 

Comptroller, Warrant No 

for the sum of 




Certificate of Auditor of Accounts 

Department of Finance 

Auditing Bureau 

igo 



I hereby certify to the Comptrol- 
ler that I have examined, audited, 
revised, and settled this account 

for the sura of $ 

The warrant is correctly drawn 
and payment should properly be 
made from the fund shown thereon. 

Auditor of Accounts 



292 



APPENDIX D 



LXXVII 
VOUCHER SCHEDULE 
BOARD OF EDUCATION fTo 

OF -I 

The City of New York [Address 



190 



For SUPPLIES. (Contract.) 



I have examined this claim and certify 
that it is correct as to calculations and 
extensions, that the prices are reason- 
able and just, and that no claim for the 
work or supplies done or furnished under 
the date mentioned in the above claim 
has heretofore been presented or paid. 



Examiner, Board of Education, 



Chap. 466, Laws 
1901, Sec. 10, 226, 
1072, 1076, 1099, 
iioo, 1139, 1145. 



It is hereby certified, That the accompanying bill of. 

amounting to 

dollars, 

has been examined and audited, and is chargeable to the appropriation for 
igo-- to the Department of Education, entitled Special School Fund, 
SUPPLIES, Borough of Manhattan; and it is further certified that the 
annexed bill is in conformity with the By-Laws and Regulations of the 
Board of Education and The Greater New York Charter, 

Dated. 

Auditor of the Board of Education. 



FORMS 



293 



LXXVIII 

ORIGINAL 

Register No 

{Contractors not to use this space.) 

This official billhead must be used for the presentation of all claims against the Board 
of Education. The Bureau of Audit and Accounts will furnish copies on application. All 
accounts must be rendered in duplicate. Original and duplicate bills, with the original 
order attached, to be mailed to Department of Education, Bureau of Audit and Accounts, 
Park Avenue and sgth Street, New York City. 



.I90- 



The Board of Education of The City of New York, 
To Dr. 

Address 



Borough of- P. S. 



Order No. 



I hereby certify that the work done, materials supplied, or services rendered, as speci- 
fied in this bill, has or have been actually performed, supplied, or rendered in accordance 

1 contract, 1 

with X agreement, V and that the prices or charges for the same are reasonable and 

( accepted estimate, ) 
not in excess of current or market rates. 



Work and materials 
inspected and approved : 



Approved : 



Inspector. 
190- - - 



Deputy Supt, School Buildings 



Supt. School Buildings 
iga - - 



294 



APPENDIX D 



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School 


SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL 
ACTIVITIES 




Evening 

Schools 

Elementary 


Principal 
Regular Teachers 
Special Teachers, Cooking 
Special Teachers, Sewing 






n 



Evening 

Schools 

High 


Principal 
Regular Teachers 








Lectures 


Salary of Lecturers 






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Vacation 
Schools 


Supervisors 

Principals 

Teachers 




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Play- 
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Supervisors 

Principals 

Teachers 






Open-Air 

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Teachers 




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Recreation 

Centres 


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Assistants 


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Roof Play- 
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Principals 

Teachers 

Pay of Musicians 








Baths 


Teachers of Swimming 

































296 



APPENDIX D 



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EXPENSE FUND 






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Printing and Binding Board Minutes 
Printing and Binding Annual Reports 








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Printing and Binding Manuals and 








5 


Directories 








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Printing Examinations Papers 
Printing Blanks 
Printing Specifications 








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Stationery 








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Stamps, Sta., Env., and Cards 
Telephones 






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Incide 


Messenger Service 
Carfares 
Supper Bills 






1 


Travelling Expenses 






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Typewriters 








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Typewriters repairs 








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Com. of Emp. not procured through 








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Civil Service 








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Medical Expenses 








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Judgments 








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Interest on Claims 








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Legislative Expenses 








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Board of Horses 

























FORMS 



297 



LXXXII 

EXAMINATION RECORD 



Pupil's Name. 



Age when Admitted. 



Name of School. 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



Pupil's Residence. 



Date of Graduation. 



I 3 years 
S 4 years 
(§ 4th year 



Caesar 
Ele. Comp. 
Prose Comp. 
Sight Prose 
Cicero 
Grammar 
Virgil 
Sight Poetry 



1ST YEAR 

Xenophon 
^4 Homer 
w Grammar 
O Ele. Comp. 
Sight Prose 
Sight Homer 



jj. 1st year 

^ 2d year 

w 3d year 

^ 4th year 



jD 1st year 

g 2d year 

§ 3d year 

4th year 



„ Ele. Algebra 
P Interm. " 
g Plane Geom. 
jd Solid Geom. 
< Adv. Algebra 
Trigonom. 



>H Ancient 

oi 

o English 

^ American, 1 
^ with Civics j 



Biol. Ele. 
g Chemistry 
w Phys. Geog. 
^ Botany, Adv. 

Zoology, Adv. 



^ Element. 
^ Advanced 
j^ Mechan. 



Stenography 
Typewriting 
Bookkeeping 
Com'l Geog. 
Economics 



298 



APPENDIX D 



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No. 




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Signatures 




10 

Amount 
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Monthly 

Salary 

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Amount 
Earnable in 

Time 

Covered by 

this 

Pay-Roll 




3 

Annual 
Salary 




8 

Position 

or 

Grade of 

Class 




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FORMS 299 



IN PREPARING PAY-ROLLS, PRINCIPALS ARE REQUESTED TO OBSERVE 
THE FOLLOWING: 

I. — All names shall conform exactly with the license held. Principals should inspect the 
licenses of newly appointed teachers and substitutes before names are entered on the roll. 

2. — The column headed "Position or Grade of Class" shall be filled in so as to indicate 
clearly the nature of the service rendered, such as 

(a) Principal, Supervision (wholly), Supervision and Teaching, Supervision and Clerical, 
Clerical (wholly). Clerical and Teaching, Regular Teachers, Kindergarten Teachers, 
Manual Training Teachers, Substitute Teachers (absence), Substitute Teachers 
(vacancies). Special Teachers, Additional Teachers. 

(b) And in the cases of teachers of classes, the sex of each class shall be indicated clearly 
as Boys, Girls, Mixed, particular care being taken with regard to mixed classes. 

3. — The column headed " Annual Salary " shall show the annual rate or rates during the 

calendar month covered by this roll, including additional compensation to teachers of 
boys' and mixed classes. 

4. — The column headed " Monthly Salary or Maximum Amount Earnable in Time Covered 

by this Pay-roll" shall show, for full employment, one-twelfth of the annual rate; and 
for fractional service, on the basis of thirty days per month, except for per diem teachers, 
who are paid per diem rates for actual service. 

5. — The column headed " Time" shall show, for regular teachers, the time for which remu- 

neration is provided, e.g. i mo., 10/30 mo., 1/30 mo., etc., and for per diem teachers the 
time of actual service expressed in days and fractions of a day, e.g. 10 days, 5 1/2 days, etc. 

6. — The column headed " Absence " shall show all absence for the appropriate period pre- 

scribed in the scheme of payment of salaries laid down by Section 57 of the By-Laws of 
the Board of Education. Said absence shall be expressed in "Days," " Hours," and 
" Minutes." 

7. — The column headed " Cause of Absence " shall show clearly the cause of all absence. 

8. — The column headed " Deductions, Retirement Fund, Absence " shall show the amount 

to be deducted for all absence, except the particular cases excepted under the By-Laws, 
based upon a deduction of one-thirtieth of the monthly salary for each of said days of 
absence. 

9. — The column headed " Deductions, Retirement Fund, Percentage" shall show " One per 

cent" of the amount shown in the column headed "Monthly Salary or Maximum 
Amount Earnable, etc.," except that the deduction in no instance shall exceed $30.00 
per annum ($2.50 per month). 

10. — The column headed (10) " Amount Due " represents the difference between the amount 

shown in the column (4) " Monthly Salary or Maximum Amount Earnable," etc., and 
the sums of the columns (8) " Deductions, Retirement Fund, Absence " and (9) " Deduc- 
tions, Retirement Fund, Percentage"; hence the footing of column (4) shall always 
equal the sum of the footings of columns (8), (9), (10). 

11. — " Signatures" should in form agree exactly with the name as printed or written. The 

names in columns (i) and (11) should conform exactly with the license. 

12. — The column headed " Package Number" shall show the number of the package from 

which the checks enumerated in the next column (13) have been used. 

13. — The column headed " Check Number " shall show the serial number of the checks used. 

14. — In the space headed " Spoiled " shall be entered the package number and check number 

of any checks spoi.ed or unfit for use. Spoiled checks shall accompany the pay-roll. 

GENERAL 

To avoid errors all computations should be made by inspection of the " Tables of Teachers' 
Salaries"; fractions of one-half cent or over being considered as equivalent in final totals to 
an additional cent; fractions of less than one-half cent to be dropped. 

In reporting substitute service, the dates and the cause of such service shall be indicated, 
— cause to be expressed by the name of the regular teacher for whom such substitute service 
was rendered or by the words " New Class" or " Vacancy." 

Pay-rolls cover calendar months {see Subdivision 5 of the By-Laws); Deductions for 
Absence on each roll cover the period froin the sist day of the preceditig tnonth to the 
20th day of the current month, inclusive, with certain exceptions {see, Sectioti J7 of the 
By-Laws) . 



300 



APPENDIX D 



2 fjtreba Qltxtitu, That of the. 



.Sessions, 



required to be held by the By-Laws, from and after the 

day of 190 , the date of our last Report, 

to and including the day of 190 

.he following Sessions have been omitted for the reasons stated, viz. : 

Date Session Cause Authority 



^nO 5 ftirtljer Certifg, That I have duly reported hereon all absences and 
the causes thereof, and also each case of the violation, by any Teacher in this 
school, of any of the By-Laws and Regulations of the Board of Education of 
The City of New York; and that the Teachers and others named and desig- 
nated herein have actually and personally performed service for the periods 
for which remuneration is provided. 



Principal. 



It is hereby certified that the within pay-roll, 

amounting to 

dollars, 

has been examined and audited, and is chargeable 
to the appropriation for igo to the Department 
of Education, entitled 

GENERAL SCHOOL FUND 
and that the within pay-roll is in conformity with 
The Greater New York Charter and the By-Laws 
and Regulations of the Board of Education of The 
City of New York. 



Auditor of the Board of Education 

of The City of New York. 

Dated 



AUDIT 


Names 






Licenses 






Cards 






Deductions 






Additions and 
Extensions 






Certifications 






Checks 






Entered 













FORMS 



301 



[back of folder] 

ORIGINAL 

TEACHERS' PAY-ROLL 



PUBLIC SCHOOL 1, GIRLS' DEPARTMENT 
For 1 90 





SALARIES 


RETIREMENT FUND 


TOTAL 


Absence 


Percentage 





































































DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Borough of Manhattan 



GENERAL SCHOOL FUND 

Account of 190 



E ijttrfig Certtfg, that the above amount of $ has 

been truly paid, without deduction, to the parties named in the within 
Pay-Roll, and that the signatures of the teachers on this Pay-Roll are 
correct and were written in my presence. 



.190 



.Principal. 



302 



APPENDIX D 



LXXXIV 

ROOMS, ETC., REQUIRED IN THE PROPOSED ANNEX, 

ADDITION, BRANCH, OR NEW BUILDING 



Location of the building_ 



District No. 



-Borough of_ 



Number of Schools that should be placed in this building, 
Number of principals 



Designation of grades and sex to be taught in one of said schools,- 
Designation of grades and sex to be taught in the other of said schools,- 



THE CLASSROOMS SHOULD BE APPORTIONED AS FOLLOWS: 





Number of 

Rooms 
FOR Boys 


Number of 

Rooms 
FOR Girls 


Number of 

Rooms for 

Boys and Girls 


Eighth and seventh years 








Sixth and fifth years 








Fourth and third years 








Second and first years 








Kindergarten 









The classrooms on the_ 
assembly rooms 

OTHER ROOMS 

Auditorium 

Gymnasium 

Cooking Room 

Workshop 

Science Room 

Bath 

Playground 



-and- 



_floors should be convertible into 



WHERE SITUATED 



Date. 
Date_ 



-Signature- 



Superintendent, 



Approved 



City Superintendent. 



Date. 



Superintendent. 



New York. 



FORMS 



303 





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No. of 
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Materials 




No. of 
Class Rooms 




No. of 
Sittings 




Building 
Surface No. 
1000 sq. ft. 




Sidewalk, etc. 
Surface No. 
1000 sq. ft. 




No. of 
Boilers 




No. of 
Furnaces 




No. of 
Engines 




No. of 
Dynamos 




No. of 
Pumps 




No. of Fans 




Gymnasium 




> 

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Lecture Hall 




Roof Play 
Grounds 




Baths 




Laboratories 




Cooking 
Room 




Workshop 



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tra. 55 



304 



APPENDIX D 









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FORMS 307 

XC 
SCHOOL TERM, 1907-8- 

No. ^ igo 

Worcester Consolidated Street Railway 

This is to certify that the bearer, 

residing at is a pupil in regular 

attendance at the School, and may travel on 

school tickets. 

Principal. 

Approved, Supt. of Schools. 

Approved, Treas. W. C. S. R. 



■ Certificate must be presented at Railway Office when tickets are purchased. 



I hereby agree to use the above-mentioned school tickets in going to and from school only, 
on such days as the school may be in session, and within reasonable time of the beginning 
and closing of school. 

(To be signed by student) 

Book No. Issued 



XCI 

[To be written in ink] 

REPORT OF PUNISHMENT* 

. (Name) (Age) (Residence) 

Date of Punishment 190 

The Teacher will please write an answer to the following questions : 

1. For what offence was the pupil above named punished ? 

2. What is his (or her) general character ? 

3. What do you know of the home influence surrounding h ? 

4. What other means have you employed for h reform ? 

5. Were h__ parents consulted before you resorted to corporal punish- 
ment ? 

6. Has._.he ever been referred to the Principal of the school or to the 
Superintendent ? How many times? 

7. What instrument was used ? 

Indianapolis. Teacher. 

Note. — This blank is to be filled out in duplicate and sent to the Principal's office at the 
close of the day on which the punishment was inflicted. Punishment should not be inflicted 
in school hours, nor in the presence of other pupils. 

1 Corporal punishment should never be given in a school for pupils of normal character. — ^Au, 



308 APPENDIX D 

XCII 

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

Officb of the City Superintendent of Schools 
Park Avenue and 59TH Street 

TO THE PRINCIPALS OF PAROCHIAL AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS 
THE CITY OF NEW YORK 

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction requires of me, in my annual 
report to him, certain information concerning Parochial and Private Schools. In 
order that I may furnish such information and at the same time obtain from you 
data required by the Compulsory Education Law, please fill out the blanks in this 
report and return it to me as soon as your school closes for the school year ending 
July 31, 190 . 

The information asked for is not for publication, but is to be used in ascertain- 
ing the summary for all schools. 

Respectfully, 



Cify Superintendent 0/ Schools. 



ANNUAL report OF THE PAROCHIAL AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS 

(Not including Colleges, Incorporated Academies or Seminaries) 
For the year commencing August i, 190 , and ending July 31, 190 , to the City 
Superintendent of Schools. 

1. Name of school ,=;:;,=.= 

2. Location , 

3 . Borough 

4. Number of pupils of your school who did not attend the public schools dur- 

ing any portion of the year 

g. Number of different pupils, over five and under eighteen years of age, regis- 
tered as having attended your school some portion of the school year. 
Boys. ; Girls ; Total 

6. Has an accurate record of their attendance been kept, as required by Sec- 

tion 6 of the Compulsory Education Law ? 

7. Number of children over eight and under fourteen years of age, residing in 

the city, attending your school during the year. Boys ; 

Girls ; Total 

8. Average daily attendance of children over eight and under fourteen. 

Boys ; Girls ; Total 

9. Number of children over fourteen and under sixteen years of age, residing 

in the city, attending your school during the year. Boys ; 

Girls ; Total 

10. Number of days your school was actually in session 

11. Has the instruction given in your school been substantially equivalent to 

that given to children of Hke age in the public schools of this city? 

12. Is there a kindergarten in your school ? 

13. Number of kindergarten pupils 



Principal. 
Dated. 



FORMS 



309 



XCIII 
ADDRESSED TO CITY LIBRARIAN 

[postal card] 

Portland, 



.190 



Pupils of thc_ 



School will soon call at the Portland Public Library for information on the following subject: 



Teacher. 



XCIV 

CLEVELAND, OHIO 



Manual Training Department. 

Name, 



_School, 



. School. 
_ Grade. 



Beginning.. 



jqo_ 



, Teacher. 





FIRST YEAR 


SECOND YEAR 




I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


7 


8 


9 


10 


I 


2 


3 


4 


5 


6 


_7_ 


_8_ 


9 


10 


Working Periods 
Times Absent . 
Deportment . . 
Application . . . 
Work Completed 
Quality of Work 

























TO THE PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS 



Your interest and cooperation will greatly enhance the value of the work undertaken by 
this department. 

This card will be sent to you for inspection at the end of each month. It may be kept one 
week and should then be returned to the Manual Training teacher. 

A " Working Period" is two hours once a week. 

The figures following " Work Completed " refer to the course of study. 

Deportment, application, and quality of work are either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, as 
indicated by the letters S or U. 



310 APPENDIX D 

xcv 

«^n.b. — every blank on this paper must be filled 

Cincinnati, 190 

To the Board of Education of the School District of the City of 
Cincinnati: 

Gentlemen : — The undersigned propose to perform 

for your Board the following work, according to plans and specifica- 
tions, on file in the Office of Superintendent of Public School Buildings. 

also certif that no person is interested in this 

proposal except whose name subscribed. 

will furnish all material and do all labor required under the 

heading No. 

(Write here the branch of work) 

in the specifications for a new school building to be erected on 



In consideration of said Board taking action upon this and all other 
bids for this work, not later than two months after opening of the 
same, and in further consideration of the treatment for all bidders for 
this work alike in this respect, and for other good and valuable con- 
siderations, further agree that this bid shall remain open and 

continuing up to the time when said Board shall take final action upon 

the same, at which time, if this bid is accepted will within 

five days after receiving notice of the acceptance of said bid, enter 
into said contract in writing for said work, with a Bonding Company 
as surety, to the satisfaction of said Board, to faithfully perform said 
contract according to said plans and specifications, and promptly to 
pay all damages accruing to said Board by reason of the failure or 
refusal of the undersigned to enter into said contract aforesaid. 



No. 2 



EXCAVATIONS 



Excavations as per Plans and Specificatior 
Extra Excavations, per cubic yard 



Bidder must sign here 



LIMESTONE MASONRY 



Material $ , Labor $ , Both %_ 

Extra Limestone Masonry, per perch, in the wall $_ 



Bidder must sign here 



FORMS 311 

CONCRETING AND CONCRETE STEEL WORK 
Material $ , Labor $ , Both $ 



Extra Concreting, per cubic yard 



Bidder must sign here 
CUT STONE WORK 



Material Labor 

Bedford (Ind.) Buff Oolitic Limestone, $ $ , Both $. 

Blue Rock-Castle Free Stone $ , $ , Both $. 

^ Olive Rock-Castle Free Stone $ ,$ , Both ^_ 

' Stone $ , $ , Both $. 



Additional for. 
Deduct for 



Bidder must sign here 

TERRA COTTA WORK 

Material $ , Labor $ , Both $ 

Noi 5 Additional for $ 

Deduct for $ 



Bidder must sign here 
CAST AND WROUGHT IRONWORK 

Material $ , Labor $. , Both $ 

Uo. 6 Additional for $ 



Deduct for. 



Bidder must sign here 

IRON FENCE WORK 

Material $ , Labor $ , Both $ 

No. 7 Additional for $ 



Deduct for. 



Bidder must sign here 
METAL LOCKERS 



Material $ , Labor ^ , Both $. 

No. 8 Additional for , $- 



Deduct for. 



Bidder must sign here 



312 



APPENDIX D 

BRICK MASONRY 



Material 



No. 9 



Gray Pressed Brick $. . 

Red Pressed Brick $.. 

Buff Pressed Brick $.. 

Mottled Pressed Brick $_. 

Steel Blue Clinker Brick __$_. 

Additional for 

Additional for 

Deduct for 



Labor 

, Both$. 

, Both $. 

, Both;^. 

, Both $_ 

, Both;?- 



Bidder must sign here 



PLASTERING 



No. 10 



Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 

Additional for Rock Plaster $. 

Additional for King's Windsor Cement $. 

Deduct for $- 



Material $ 

Noi 11 Additional for_ 
Deduct for 



Bidder must sign here 

FIRE PROOFING 

_, Labor $ , Both $ 



Bidder must sign here 

CARPENTER WORK 

Material $ , Labor $ , Both ^ 

Additional for Weather Strips, Chamberlin $, Stanfield $ 

No. 12 Additional for. $ 

Deduct if Burlap is used for Wainscoting in place of wood $ 

Deduct for $ 



Bidder must sign here 

PAINTING AND GLAZING 

, Labor $ '. , Both $ 



No. 13 



Material $ 

Additional for $ 

Deduct if Burlap is used for Wainscoting in place of wood $ 
Deduct for '. $ 



Bidder must sign here 



FORMS 313 



BURLAP DECORATIONS 

Material $ , Labor ;^ , Both 

Uoi 14 Additional for 

Deduct for 



Bidder must sign here 



ROOFING AND METAL WORK 

Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 

No. 16 Additional for $. 

Deduct for $. 



Bidder must sign here 



PLUMBING AND GAS PIPING 

Material $ , Labor $ , Both 

Additional for 



No. 16 Additional for. 

Deduct for 

Deduct for 



Bidder must sign here 



TILE WORK 



Material $ , Labor $ , Both 

No. 17 Additional for 



Deduct for. 



Bidder must sign here 



MARBLE AND SLATE WORK 



Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 

No. 18 Additional for $. 

Deduct for S_ 



Bidder must sign here 



No. 19 „ ,.^ 
Quality. 



BLACK BOARDS 
Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 



Bidder must sign here 



314 APPENDIX D 

OUTSIDE CEMENT WORK AND DRIVEWAYS 
Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 



No. 20 



Bidder must sign here 



HEATING AND VENTILATING 
Material $._ , Labor $ , Both $. 



No. 21 



Bidder must sign here 



FINISH GRADING, SODDING, AND TREES 
Material $ , Labor $ , Both $. 



No. 22 

Additional sodding, per yard $ 

* 

Bidder must sign here 

COAL SCALE 

No. 23 Material ;? , Labor $ , Both $ 

* 

Bidder must sign here 



Explanations and remarks may be written here or upon an extra 
sheet to be attached hereto : Bidders will take notice that they are 
required to sign both their bid and guaranty. 



APPENDIX E 

CONSTITUTION OF A SCHOOLMEN'S CLUB^ 

1 — The name of this Club shall be " The Federal Schoolmen's Club." 

2 — Its object shall be to promote acquaintance among its members 

and to hold stated meetings for the discussion of questions of 
educational interest. 

3 — The membership is limited to sixty, of whom not more than fifty 

shall be chosen prior to November i, 1907, and of whom not 
more than two-fifths shall come from any one of the following 
four classes, viz. : — 

1. Colleges and universities. 

2. Public schools not of collegiate rank. 

3. Private schools not of collegiate rank. 

4. Unclassified, consisting of persons who are now or who 
have been engaged otherwise in educational work. 

4 — Charter members shall be enrolled April 13, 1907. Thereafter, 

members shall be selected in the following manner : Applicants 
or nominees for membership shall be certified by at least two 
members. They may be voted upon by ballot in order of appli- 
cation after the expiration of not less than thirty days. Two 
negative votes in the Board of Governors shall defeat the pres- 
entation of the name to the Club, and the name shall not be 
submitted again within one year. Three negative votes at any 
regular meeting of the Club shall defeat the candidate for a 
period of not less than two years. 

5 — Every applicant for membership must agree in writing to take 

such part in the proceedings as the President on behalf of the 
Programme Committee may request upon not less than ten 
days' notice. 

6 — The membership fee shall be two dollars. The annual fee shall 

^ Slightly modified for publication. Among other provisions is one designed to extend the 
membership beyond the District of Columbia. 



3l6 APPENDIX E 

be eight dollars, in full payment of all dues, cost of collations, 
dinners, speakers, and miscellaneous items, and shall be pay- 
able in October or at or before the next regular meeting follow- 
ing election to membership, pro rata as certified by the Board 
of Governors. 

7 — Absence for seven successive meetings without written excuse 

shall constitute resignation. 

8 — There shall be seven meetings each year, to be held on the sec- 

ond Friday of October, November, December, January, Febru- 
ary, March, and April. The annual meeting shall be held in 
March, and the April meeting shall be open to ladies. 

9 — A member may invite one guest to any meeting, for whom he 

shall pay one dollar and a half for a dinner or one dollar for a 
collation. On ladies' night, a member may invite more than 
one guest. The Programme Committee may invite not exceed- 
ing two guests as speakers, payable by the Club. 

10 — The Government of this Club is vested in a Board of Governors 

to consist of seven members. 

11 — The Board of Governors shall be chosen originally by ballot 

upon the thirteenth day of April, 1907. The members thereof 
shall draw lots for terms of one, two, three, and four years. 
Thereafter, they shall be elected for terms of four years or less 
as may be determined at the annual meeting. In the event of a 
vacancy in the Board, it shall elect a member to hold office 
until the following March meeting. 

12 — The Board of Governors shall be at once an Executive Committee, 

a Membership Committee, a Ways and Means Committee, and 
the Trustees of the property of the Club. It shall report 
annually. It shall hold a monthly meeting, at which a majority 
shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business. It 
shall appoint, to serve during its pleasure, a Secretary and a 
Treasurer. It may remove any member of the Club by unani- 
mous vote for cause. The certificate of the Chairman of the 
Board of Governors, attested by the Secretary, as to the stand- 
ing of a member shall be final. 

13 — The Club shall have a President and an Auditor of Accounts, 

both to be elected annually in the regular meeting in March. 

14 — The President, the Secretary, the Treasurer, and two members to 

be elected at the annual business meeting in March shall con- 



CONSTITUTION OF A SCHOOLMEN'S CLUB 317 

stitute a Programme and Entertainment Committee, which shall 
meet monthly. 

15 — All officers shall be members of the Club. The President, 

the Auditor, and the two elected members of the Programme 
and Entertainment Committee shall not be eligible for 
reelection. No man shall hold two offices at the same time. 

16 — The President shall be Toastmaster during his term of office. 

Whenever absent he shall designate a member of the Pro- 
gramme Committee to act in his place. 

17 — At the monthly meeting preceding the annual meeting, the Club 

shall elect by ballot a Nominating Committee of four (one from 
each class of members) to propose names for Officers, Boards, 
and Committees. In each instance, the Committee shall propose 
two names ; but no member shall be nominated to more than 
one office by the Committee. This provision does not preclude 
other nominations by members of the club. 

18 — Upon recommendation of the Board of Governors, this Constitu- 

tion may be amended after thirty days' notice by a majority 
vote of the whole membership upon ballot. For the purpose of 
transacting any other business, twenty-one members shall con- 
titute a quorum. 



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APPENDIX G 

A REAL SUPERINTENDENCY 
Additional Statement by the Chairman 

Senator Burkett. I wish to suggest to the subcommittee, in addi- 
tion to what Senator Dolliver has just spoken of, that I have here in a 
late number of the magazine, School Education, an article entitled " A 
Real Superintendency," by Prof. A. W. Rankin, of the College of Edu- 
cation, University of Minnesota. It is not a very long paper and deals 
with the efficiency of school boards and on the question of the advisa- 
bility of some other method of managing schools. If there is no 
objection, I will ask that it be put in the record right after what Senator 
Dolliver has said about omitting the board. 

Senator Carter. I suppose from what has been said that it deals 
with the inefficiency of school boards. 

Senator Burkett. Yes. 

The paper referred to is as follows : — 

a real superintendency 

Prof. A. W. Rankin, College of Education, University of Minnesota 

The more scientific instruction becomes in the public schools, the 
more professional the supervision, the more technical the administra- 
tion, the more serious is the question of the relations of the school 
boards to the management of the schools. It is safe to say that 
boards of education are, as at present organized by law, a menace 
to the interests of the schools. Good men on school boards are 
well aware of this. The responsibilities placed upon them are such 
as ought to be assumed only by experts in education. It takes a 
very uninformed or a very presumptuous member of a school board 
not to realize that the law makes it incumbent on him to decide many 
things which ought to be in the province of the superintendent of 
schools, and so placed by law. The selection of teachers, the choice 

319 



320 APPENDIX G 

of plans for school buildings, the matter of text-books, the hours of 
school work, the course of study, the number of children to a teacher, 
examinations for promotion, the kind of janitor work, the kind of 
seats, times of vacation, the length of the school year, qualifications 
of teachers, methods of instruction, dismissal of incompetent teachers, 
transfer of teachers, all these and others are really technical matters 
which demand professional skill in the management. When you 
come to think of it, there isn't much which a member of a board of 
education may legitimately do, except to employ a superintendent and 
let him organize things, and let him go if he cannot make good. 

The present condition of things is unsatisfactory because it gives 
opportunity for brash men to harass superintendents and to stand in 
the way of progress. Possibly the lawmakers expect that boards will 
always delegate professional management to experts whom they may 
hire for that purpose, but the result in practice tends to lose to the 
schools the advancement made in education. It is a town poor 
in cranks that cannot get one on the school board. This one man 
can do more from his advantageous position to keep back advancement 
than five superintendents can counteract. Even if the town is fortu- 
nate in possessing a superintendent strong enough to carry the schools 
with one or more school-board members on his back, there is a great 
loss of energy in doing such a feat. It is not a wholesome spec- 
tacle, either for gods or men, and young men looking on decide that 
as for them they will never have anything to do with schools. 

The present condition also affords an opportunity for superintendents 
to dodge responsibility. Probably a superintendency is not a good 
place for one to develop the power of initiative. A man in it has to 
wait on the actions, the prejudices, the whims, and the stubbornnesses 
of others. He excuses his failures to himself and to others by the fact 
that he can do only what his board permits. 

The community, too, either judges the superintendent unfairly, or it 
gets into the habit of looking to the wrong source for reforms. There 
has almost never been a school board which has put good schools 
where bad ones have been. The most they ever do is to get out of the 
way and let some superintendent do it for them. If, however, the com- 
munity makes the mistake of looking to the school board for advance- 
ment in school work, they look a long time, and advancement never comes. 

It would be much better if laws were so framed that superintendents 
be given " original jurisdiction " in the matters which are professional. 



A REAL SUPERINTENDENCY 32 1 

Think how slight has been the advance in school architecture. The 
essential unit of a school building is the schoolroom, and that is just 
about the same now that it was fifty years ago. Seating of rooms 
has changed very slightly, if at all, for the better. If such matters 
could be turned over to school men there would be great prospect of 
improvement. I am sure that all men who ought to be on boards of 
education would welcome the change. Those who would object are 
the very ones who have no business on the board of education. 

Senate document, Jan. 28, 1908. Proceedings of District Committee. 
Hearing on bill (Senate 4032). (Committee unanimously recom- 
mended omitting the board of education from the local machinery of 
government in the District of Columbia.) 



APPENDIX H 

PENSIONS 1 

Some years ago, a worthy clergyman was invited to make an appear- 
ance in a city of a State where the citizens had the right to choose by 
ballot whether they would have the sale of intoxicating liquors prohib- 
ited or licensed. Our good friend was to offer the opening prayer to 
the Almighty, invoking His blessing upon the occasion. As he walked 
upon the platform in that local option community, he approached the 
chairman of the gathering and queried : " I don't want to give offence 
to these good people ; are they for or against ? " 

It was an ancient Greek philosopher who portrayed man as a 
charioteer trying to drive two horses, a white and a black, a good and 
a bad, and it was the Master of mankind (whose bidding we shall yet 
do, whether we will or no) who said, " Let your yea be yea and your 
nay nay." Let us be for or against this proposition of public pensions. 

There are four general models for pensions : (i) the State-granted pen- 
sions, (2) the State-aided pensions, (3) the State-required pensions, and 
(4) the State-protected pensions. The military pensions of this great 
country of ours are examples of the State-granted pensions. Great 
Britain has long been heavily loaded with pensions of this character^ 
granted for various reasons, and, I fear, pretexts. Pensions by State 
aid are well known in this country and in Europe. Every society, 
every municipality, every nation that engages in creating and maintain- 
ing pensions of this character, has a different plan. I have been very 
much interested in examining the different plans prevailing in Belgium, 
Germany, France, and Australia to see whether there is a principle 
common to them all ; and it seems to me that there is such a principle. 
A State-aided pension is payable out of fiinds saved from individual 
wages, reenforced by a State grant. A system of State-aided pensions 
involves several features : first, a society, a corporation, or any kind of 

1 Excerpts from address before the Treasury Branch of the United States Civil Service 
Retirement Association, January 20, 1907, Washington, D.C. 

322 



PENSIONS 323 

trusteeship ; second, the members of the fund who are to be eligible to 
its benefits ; third, the wage deductions ; and fourth, the various kinds 
of State additions. The State-required pension involves but one idea 
— that the wage-earner or salary-saver must be a contributor to the 
fund to the benefits of which he is eligible. This form of pension is 
well known in America. As a supplement to retirement half pay, it is 
admirable, — it is ideal. The State-protected pension is purely volun- 
tary in so far as its contributors are concerned. What the State does 
for the fund is to enforce the contracts and to protect the property. 

Now, historically, the eldest of all these devices is the one that is not 
generally attainable here in America. ^ It is the straight service pen- 
sion payable out of Government taxes. Next in age is the State-pro- 
tected fund. Historically, this form of pension is about as old as life 
insurance. After that, we have the State-required pension ; and, lastly, 
and most complicated of all, the State-aided pension system. 

We are not here to-night to advocate any special kind of pensions. 
Any kind of pension is more helpful to its beneficiary than none at all. 
There seem to be four fundamental questions : — 

First. What is the right of old age against the income of the work- 
ing world ? 

Second. What is the right of the working world against the man 
invalided by old age ? 

Third. What is the special right of the aged Government employee 
against society organized as Government ? 

And, Lastly, What is the right of Government against the superan- 
nuated employee ? 

When we show what these four rights are, we lay the foundations for 
a pension system. 

Pensions have been aptly termed " the endowment of old age." It 
is an interesting phrase that focalizes the light upon a certain result of 
the modern form of industrial society. Time was, time has always been 
until now, — and by "now" I mean the last quarter of a century, — 
when the man of years was the master of all younger men. To the 
man growing old, every kind of power has gravitated. He has been the 
magnet for property, for office, for knowledge, for service, and for 
influence. To him, younger men have been hands and feet ; to them, 
he has been the fountain of inspiration, of counsel, and of authority. 

1 New Jersey has it for teachers ; and there are a few other instances. 



324 APPENDIX H 

Books and machines have destroyed most of this ancient prestige of the 
old man. Out of the printed book the young man acquires rapidly 
what the old man formerly learned through decades. With his supe- 
rior physical activity, the young man, versed in books, overmasters 
the old man in all manner of occupations and professions. By educa- 
tion, we have subjugated time and destroyed the value of years of 
experience. Still worse for the old man is the case of the young man 
with the machine, for, in the fearful pace of modern industrialism, a 
man of fifty is usually too inattentive, too weak, to hold resolutely and 
successfully every minute for ten or twelve hours every day at work 
amid the throbbing and pounding of machinery. Modern industrialism 
has returned mankind to the barbarism before civilization began," to the 
day when the strong young man by violence forced his way to the 
supremacy of his group or tribe. "No old men need apply" is written 
over the doors and windows of modern industrial society. 

In such a state of affairs as this, men who are advancing in years 
have three possible remedies. These three, however, are not all of 
them open to all old men. 

The first remedy is for every man, as he goes forward through life, to 
accumulate property against the days of old age, that is, in popular par- 
lance, "to save money." "Thrift " is a great catch-word, but thrift is 
sometimes impossible, sometimes sinful, and sometimes fruitless. In 
this civilization, for men in certain stations, in certain relations, or in 
certain conditions, thrift is impossible. Before men in Federal service, 
I need not discuss this proposition. I mean the thrift based on the 
maxim of the men who have acquired property, to this effect, 
" Save one-half," " Save one-third of your income." And thrift is 
sometimes positively sinful. The father with a small income and large 
family, who deliberately, out of fear for his own old age, refuses to help 
a brilliant son or daughter to a thorough education, and prefers to 
deposit monthly twenty-five or fifty dollars in a savings bank, sins 
against that youth and against society, and destroys his own better 
nature. Hoarding for an old age that may never be realized is a sin 
of the civilized and a sign of decadence. It is the noble virtue of pru- 
dence become a vice. We all know instances in which the heirs of the 
hoards of such old men have been ruined by undeserved windfalls; 
and we know still more instances in which the children and other 
relatives of such men have been made miserable by the presence of 
these misers. 



PENSIONS 325 

And thrift is sometimes fruitless. It is much easier to lose property 
than to accumulate it. 

The second remedy against the poverty of old age is " to die in 
harness." Some men never grow old, but this fortune of keeping one's 
health beyond seventy, beyond eighty even, this greatest fortune that 
can come to men, is also the rarest. The man of will can drive himself 
so that he never knows the turn of the hill and the down grade. We 
read of him every day. " He was not feeling very well," say the news- 
papers, "but exposed himself to the bad weather and contracted 
pneumonia, and, of course, died." This is the formula. It is the 
pace that kills the old men of will-power.^ These old men rise and eat 
breakfast and go to their work one day too often, and the register of 
the dead records their end. For thousands every year, it is the door of 
escape from ignominious dependence in old age upon relatives or the 
public. 

The third remedy is that which we have under discussion here 
to-night, and refers to a special class of superannuated persons. Our 
question, therefore, takes this form : What are the rights of those sur- 
vivors of a former generation who could not save as against the present 
working world ? Many say, " None." Some say, " The poorhouse." 
Others say, "Private charity." Let me ask two other questions: 
"What is this present world ?" And, "Who are these survivors ?" 
Despite appearance, this present world is not the creation of to-day. 
It is not born anew with each sunrise. It is ancient, more ancient 
than recorded history. The dead have left this present world to us as 
their legacy. Lincoln and Webster and Washington, Morse and Steph- 
enson and Whitney and Watt, Thackeray and Shakespeare, and Dante 
and Vergil, Langton and Solon and Moses, Luther and Paul and 
Socrates and Abraham, built this world and gave it to us. Every 
forefather has made his contribution. This American civilization, 
which carries us all, whether President or magnate or clerk or pauper, 
is precisely the most complicated and uncomprehended product that 
mankind has yet evolved. And the old man sitting among us is the 
symbol of our debt to all the dead, remembered and unremembered. 
He is our legacy, our benefactor, our link to the past, our pilot into 
the future, our best asset ; and who are we younger men to judge him ? 

1 This may be stated physiologically and anatomically. The man who survives in the 
sedentary life must have strong internal organs (usually by inheritance) and relatively weak 
external muscles. Will power is health of the nervous system at its centers. 



326 APPENDIX H 

Perhaps this old man sitting among us has not saved his money; 
perhaps he is guilty of that modern sin of " not having a dollar " ; per- 
haps, vifithout succor, he would die in a few days of starvation, to put 
it at its worst. Perhaps he has a thousand dollars in a bank. Has he 
no rights until he has spent every one of those dollars ? These are the 
old men, who have transmitted this civilization to us, adding to it their 
part. They have handed down to us improved this State and Govern- 
ment, this Church and Religion, this School and Education, this Property 
and Business, this Culture and Occupation, this Home and Family, which 
together make our characteristic Americanism. But perhaps some 
special old man is not worthy of a State endowment. Most of his 
contemporaries have gone the way of the flesh. His witnesses are 
dead. God sends his rain on the just and on the unjust alike. He lets 
the wheat and the tares grow together until the time of the harvest. 
Old age had its youth and prime of manhood, did its work, and is 
approaching the bar beyond the veil for judgment. Our business is 
that we judge not lest we be judged.^ I have seen too much of life to 
know anything before or beyond my personal experience : the rest is 
opinion. Even one's own experience is often to be distrusted. 

Let us be optimists enough to admit that no total sum that will ever 
be paid by organized society for the relief of men invalided by old 
age will ever equal what society actually owes to them as a body, and 
let us ignore the question of individual merit. We have better uses for 
our own time than in trying to judge our betters. 

The second question is. What is the right of society against the old 
man ? It is a bitter thing to say that the dislodgment of senescent 
men from their places of power has been a process coincident with the 
progress of mankind in wealth, in peace, in knowledge, and in morals ; 
but it appears to be the truth. One might almost say that civilization 
is a device for the prompt detection and conviction of approaching 
senility. Society needs at the post of service the best available man. 
Modern society denies the ancient doctrine of vested rights in special 
offices, and uses these maxims: "Due for value received;" '■^Qiiid 
pro quo ; " " What can you do now ? " Because these maxims prevail, 
we are progressing now in single decades farther than the ancient 
world progressed in centuries. But this progression is too often at 
great cost to individuals. Because the senescent man should step 

1 The Greek word used here by Jesus is kolv^io, which means, " cut apart " and set aside, 
that is, condemn. Distrust opinions was the theme of Socrates. 



PENSIONS 327 

down, it does not necessarily follow that he should step out. Even if 
he should step down and out from the world of the day's work, it by 
no means follows that he should be cut off as an outlaw from the 
world of wealth. It may be that he has not received back from that 
world all that he gave it ; he may not have received full wages for his 
services and product. The right of society to displace the old man 
who can no longer do his work well is conditioned and limited by the 
disposition of society to maintain this old man in honorable retirement. 
A civilized society of abundant general wealth that permits faithful old 
men to disappear in an undeserved poverty through the invalidism of 
old age is less human than were the barbarian tribes and hordes of other 
times. It is guilty of an unreflecting savagery that perverts the moral 
sense of youth and childhood, for whose best good adult manhood is, 
of course, working. What I mean is that it is harmful for our boys and 
girls to see old age neglected. We need to learn a lesson from a people 
upon the other half of the globe, the Chinese. 

Our third question was. What is the special right of the Federal em- 
ployee against society organized as Government ? Has he any right to 
any kind of pension ? What is a Government clerk? He is a man (or 
she is a woman) who surrenders all his heart and all his intellect to the 
will of the legislature. He is an intelligent and devoted servant of the 
public will as expressed by that legislature. He has left the sphere of 
liberty, has abandoned business with its opportunities, has accepted a 
schedule of hours and of duties, and has enlisted as a willing soldier in 
the army of the common good. He is one of the finest products of 
historic civilization and is absolutely necessary to its preservation.^ 

^ In the year 1739 in France there were certain thousands of men operating the Govern- 
ment of Louis XVI in nation, in province, and in village. Then came the terror of the 
French Revolution that cost the lives of over a million of people. Came next the Directorate. 
Napoleon followed as Consul, First Consul, and as Emperor. More millions perished in his 
mighty wars. With him came the code Napoleon. The Hundred Days followed and the 
Exile. Then at Waterloo fell the great rebel against things that were. Louis XVIII was 
succeeded by Charles X. In 1830 Louis Philippe, the elected constitutional monarch, the 
bourgeois king who sent his own boys to the public schools, came to the throne. With plebeian 
common sense, he made inquiries in Versailles, in Paris, in every city, town, and village, as 
to who had been operating the Government through these forty years. The deep ocean knows 
nothing of wind, wave, and storm ; it knows only the Arctic and Tropic currents that flow in 
masses through it. What plain Louis Philippe found was that through these forty years the 
old Government clerks of 1789 had been dying off and the younger ones had been growing 
old, and lads had been entering the service. He found hundreds and thousands as ready to 
work for Louis Philippe as they had worked for Charles and for the Emperor and for the 
Louis whom the Revolution had guillotined. Why ? Were they traitors ? No ; they 



328 APPENDIX H 

Somewhere between 63 and 70 years of age, the Government clerk 
probably needs to give up daily regular active work ; that is, he needs 
to retire. Of course, he needs an income. According to American 
representative democracy, both its theory and its practice, this Govern- 
ment clerk has either saved a respectable property or purchased an 
annuity. According to the same theory and practice, he has been paid 
" a living wage " and no more. These two theories are obviously con- 
tradictory, but it has not yet been the ambition of American democracy 
to avoid contradictions. As a matter of fact, the senescent clerk has 
received only " a living wage," and has not saved either $35,000 worth 
of property or purchased an annuity of $1200 a year, its equivalent. 
On the contrary, he has married a wife, reared and educated several 
children, and lived honorably and charitably as a good citizen. 
Whether he has earned $1000 or $2500 a year, he has needed every 
dollar for necessary expenses. He has probably purchased life insur- 
ance to protect his wife and children in case of his death, but he has 
hesitated to buy an annuity policy to protect himself. He has tried to 
shut his eyes to the inevitable, hoping to die in harness, and often he 
realizes his hope. But surely, some good business man thinks — he 
doesn't say it, because he never advertises his exact fortune — " He 
might have saved a few hundred dollars, have invested it wisely, and 
acquired a modest competence. See what I have done. I began with 
nothing, saved something, and see my hundred thousand or million, or 
whatever amount I have," and then he recalls some Government 
employee who has invested or speculated successfully and left the 
service. Those who lose remain. Any statistician knows, most of you 

worked for Government, for the peace and order of society ; they were the eye and hand of 
the Government. 

There is an old man, a war veteran, a municipal clerk, who has been in a certain city hall 
for thirty years and more ; he has seen three different city halls on that same spot. He has 
seen Republicans and Democrats and Independents sit in authority in the mayoralty and in 
the city council. For those thirty years, he has opened the vaults with his own key to the 
city treasury and drawn its warrants ; and I have heard amateur politicians, suddenly elevated 
to office, discuss the removal of that old man who knows everybody and everything about 
that city hall. Some day this old man will disappear, but there is not political power enough 
in that city to remove him before he himself or the death angel fixes the hour of his going. So 
long as he lives, in respect to his office, he is the Government. Instances of this character 
are familiar to you all. The Government clerk is indispensable. He lays the track, he 
furnishes the coal, he oils the engines, and he takes orders whether the train shall run east or 
west. He is obedient and loyal within the limits of honor to the powers that be, and is silent. 
Because he has renounced his own will that he may serve the higher will of organized society, 
and because he listens to all and speaks with caution, his advice is sought by all the wise. 



PENSIONS 329 

know better than I, for many of you are past masters at figures, that to 
get together $35,000 in the course of twenty-five years, one must save 
at least $600 a year to draw compound interest, and most of you know 
better than I the cost of house rent, of provisions, of clothing, and of 
medical service here. All of you know better than I how few men in 
Government employ who invest a thousand dollars to make ten 
thousand ever see the thousand dollars again. 

No, the Government clerk, whatever be his department, is at work 
from 9 to 4.30 o'clock at a desk, with a brief lunch period. He has no 
time to go among the business houses and to learn the ways of the 
world, and discover how not to lose a thousand dollars. He has more 
important business than trying to make money. His business is to 
help carry on this Government. The best use he can make of his 
money is to spend it wisely, for the present good of himself, his wife, 
and his children. In this respect, his position is the same as that of 
nine out of ten of other American men. 

Our conclusion, therefore, is this, that it is especially difficult for 
Federal employees to save much money. I am not now speaking of 
saving a few hundred dollars for a rainy day. That should be a matter 
of religion. In this community, on the roof top of America, it is right 
for him to give his children all the advantages that his income permits. 
The Federal employee is, therefore, shut in to the third remedy against 
poverty due to the invalidism of old age, which is some form, any 
form, of a pension. 

The fourth question is. What are the rights of the Government against 
the superannuated employee ? I have tried to establish foundations now 
for two propositions: first, the Government has no right to continue 
to employ him to the detriment of the service ; second, the Government 
has no right to unload him upon the world. And yet our American 
democracy in Nation, in State, and in municipalities is doing both of 
these things, the first to its injury, and the second to its disgrace. 
From this dilemma there is but one way of escape. This way saves 
the honor of civilized society by doing justice to the old men. 

At this point, it is necessary to make certain reservations. Society 
has no right to put a man of fifty into Government office and to expect 
that at sixty-eight he will be retired on half pay. The pension of a 
Federal employee is by no means a mere old-age pension. It is an 
honorable means of retirement from long and satisfactory service. It is 
not a minimum allowance to keep life in the body. It is a fair stipend 



330 



APPENDIX H 



to give to old age leisure with dignity, that the old man may be able to 
counsel the younger man wisely and without bitterness as he reflects 
upon life. It is a deferred dividend earned in more laborious days, and 
it is paid that old age may be prolonged to an unhastened natural term. 
Such a pension makes old age itself seem more honorable in the eyes 
of the multitude. 

The answer to the fourth and last of our questions is that when 
human society, organized as Government, is ready to retire upon a reason- 
able fixed income the invalided old man of long service, then it has the 
right to remove and to retire him. Such, in a general way, seems to 
me the main line of argument for Civil Service pensions, whatever be 
their kind. But this argument is too logical to be wholly complete, 
and there are certain reasons for establishing a compulsory pension 
system for all persons in the Federal service that were not included 
in this summary. Some of those reasons are well worthy of our 
consideration. 

In twentieth-century America, the State is the one universal social 
institution, controlling us all without exception. Founded upon a new 
device, the written constitution, inspired by the democratic faith of 
equality of opportunity, American Government represents the fnost 
powerful 7nethod yet discovered by men for the protnotion of civilization. 
It may, indeed, be true, as our foreign critics say, that American democ- 
racy is government by amateurs ; even harsher criticisms may be true ; 
but the substantial fact shines out that here under the direction and 
protection of democratic legislatures, courts, and executives, humanity 
has prospered beyond its experience anywhere else in human history. 
American democratic Government represents the climax in social thought 
and practice ; but it does not represent perfection. The presence of 
employees no longer capable of performing competent service, and block- 
ing the way of better men, is a notable imperfection. The time will 
yet come when Government service will present conditions that will 
attract to it in all departments the best talents and only the best talents. 
One of those conditions is security against poverty in old age. Another 
is relief from pressing regular work one knows one can no longer do 
well, by retiring upon a pension. 

There is another consideration that should appeal to our national 
pride. Ours is one of the great nations of the world. Some call it the 
greatest nation, that remains to be proven. Shall we not do as well by 
those who operate this Government for us as other nations do for their 



PENSIONS 331 

public servants ? National self-respect should lead us not merely to 
follow but also to improve upon the examples of other nations. 

A third consideration, that has already been before the members of 
this association, concerns the operation of the Civil Service system since 
the memorable year of 1883. For nearly a century, our best publicists 
had been urging the importance of divorcing the executive service as 
completely from politics as the judicial is divorced. For nearly a cen- 
tury, practical politicians had been saying to their betters, " You talk 
too much ; this is our affair ; " but the day came when the thinkers had 
converted enough persons to create a right public opinion, and the 
Civil Service was reformed. The result of this reform was to make the 
service a profession for life. 'Now, every worthy member of a profes- 
sion is clearly entitled to live by it and to die in it.^ When active 
service ends, he may justly claim maintenance for past deserts. To 
complete Civil Service reform, there must be devised a way to honor- 
able retirement as well as a way to honorable admission. We have put 
our hands to the plough and must finish out the furrow. 

Another consideration is extremely practical. A man for any reason 
incompetent is always a danger. The fact that once he was competent 
does not relieve the situation. The danger may concern financial affairs 
or confidential relations, or the transmission of orders involving life, 
death, peace of mind, property, or whatever it may be. The American 
people, our rulers, have a right to be relieved of that danger. 

Still another consideration is extremely practical. Most young men 
and women, when they enter Government service, think that before 
long they will find something better in the world of freedom, and most 
of them at first have but comparatively small demands upon their salaries 
from others. Youth foresees nothing and is oversanguine. Youth dis- 
likes prudence and compulsion. The very clerks who can best afford 
a trifling one or two per cent reduction from their salaries most object 
to it.2 No voluntary annuity or retirement fund or association can be 
successful in accomplishing all the legitimate objects of old-age pensions. 

A sixth consideration is this. The voluntary pension association is 

1 This should be granted even by those who will not grant that only the immoral should 
he in poverty. 

^ The two bills introduced into Congress in 1907-1908 both adopted i^ per cent as the basis. 
Civil service pensions of this character are certain to come in the National Government. In 
the interim, Great Britain is proceeding to old-age pensions upon Government basis. Both 
countries are behind Germany in this necessary development, necessary because of our 
present economic regime. 



332 APPENDIX H 

but a type or an inducement to the compulsory fund. It sets a good 
example.^ It may serve one generation or two generations ; but as the 
service becomes wholly professional, the demands grow greater. There 
is need of Government regulation and protection, which at last come. 

Another consideration is that there is absolutely no conflict between 
straight service pensions payable by Government out of taxes and 
pensions payable out of funds derived by deductions from salaries. 
One does not preclude the other. Either may exist without the other. 
The one does not lead to the other. In the State of New Jersey, for 
example, there are many teachers drawing two pensions, amounting to 
their full salary, and they do not get a dollar more than they earned 
through thirty faithful years. They will not live long enough to be 
paid in full for all that in their prime they did for intelligence, efficiency, 
and morality, where they taught school. Their good fortune has added 
a most desirable public respect for the calling of the teacher. 

An eighth consideration is that what the railroads and banks and the 
States can do the Government should be willing to consider. This 
nation has more than a quarter of a million executive service employees. 
It is an army of workers of singularly high quality, and yet certain 
great industrial corporations are apparently more thoughtful for the 
welfare of their employees and for the success of their business than is 
this governmental corporation, our nation, by far the greatest financial 
enterprise in the world. 

A few months ago, a wag of a cartoonist presented two pictures of 
Niagara Falls fifty years hence. One of these pictures represented the 
Falls as perfectly dry, with the water turned aside for mighty power 
plants and factories ; the other represented the Falls with the water 
pouring with terrific power down the old channels, — for the benefit of 
wealthy tourists who had paid the price for the stopping of all the plants 
and factories. 

In the spiritual world of America, we have the counterpart of the 
physical phenomena of Niagara Falls. Political democracy is a tre- 
mendous flood, a cataract, that may be harnessed for the uses of man. 
We are harnessing that flood with our congresses, our legislatures, our 
councils, our party conventions. We are building up most com- 
plicated systems of courts and of offices to convert the will power of 
democracy to the welfare of man. Throughout America, we are 

' Unless it becomes insolvent, as in the case of The Teachers' Aid and Annuity Association 
(white) in the District of Columbia. 



PENSIONS 333 

endowing childhood and youth with the heritage of civiUzation. 
Unfortunately, we meet resistance ; but what we do, let us do with the 
utmost good will. Compulsory education is compulsory endowment of 
youth with knowledge. This compulsion is applied in democratic 
fashion by democratic methods. 

In the same way, it will probably be necessary for the general welfare 
to endow those indispensable agents of the democratic will, the em- 
ployees of the Government, with annuity rights by compulsion ; and in 
their old age, they will gratefully acknowledge that the general social 
mind as expressed in the law creating the pension system was wiser 
than that of those individuals who may have opposed it. 



APPENDIX I 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Supplement to Appendix III, Libraries, Our Schools, pp. 376-379 

5. Psychology and Child Study. 

Dynamic Factors in Education. Also, The Linguistic Factor in Educa- 
tion. O'Shea. 
Aspects of Child Life and Education. Hall. 
Growth and Education. Tyler. 
Educational Psychology . Thorndike. 
Psychology : General Introduction. Judd. 

6. Physiology and Hygiene. 

The Semi-Insane and the Semi-Responsible. Grasset. 

Les Enfants Anormaux. Binet and Simon. 

Sleep : Its Physiology , Pathology, Hygiene, and Psychology. Menacelne. 

Medical Inspection of School Children. Mackenzie. 

Principles of Breeding : A Treatise on Thremmatology. Davenport. 

Text-book of Psychiatry : A Psychological Study of Insanity. Mendel. 

7. School Management and Instruction. 

Classroom Management. Bagley. 
The Continuation School. Jones. 
The School and Its Life. Gilbert. 
Pupil Self Government. Cronson. 
The New Education. Palmer. 
School Education. Mason. 
Management of a City School. Perry. 

8. History and Theory of Education. 

The Educative Process. Bagley. 

Philosophy of Education and Psychologic Principles of Education. Home. 

Text-book of the History of Education. Monroe. 

A History of Higher Education in America. Thwing. 

A Theory of Motives, Ideals, and Values in Education. Chancellor. 

334 



INDEX 



Age of separation in classes, 99. 

Apparatus, school, 78 et seq. 

Appointment, to superintendency, 25; 
ways to secure, 25-26 ; by State board 
examinations, 183 ; of janitors, clerks, 
and engineers, 53; of teachers to 
eligible list, 186. 

Architect, school, 7 ; duties of, 10 ; need 
of, 52, 65. 

Architecture, 61-64, 83-86. 

Archives, to be kept faithfully, 11 ; in 
charge of secretary, 51. 

Assembly hall, uses of, 60 ; equipment 
of, 85. 

Athletics, in city schools, 176 ; for all in- 
dividuals, 177. 

Attendance officer, 7, 172; women as, 

137- 
Attendance records, see Appendix. 
Attorney, duties of, 50. — -- 

Baldwin, J. Mark, quoted, in n. 

Blackboards, 64 ; slate or better, 79. 

Board of education, city, if appointive 
should be large, if elective small, 16 ; 
powers of, 16-19; corruption in, 17; 
should have power to levy taxes, 18 ; 
should be a corporation, 18 ; its com- 
mittees, 18 ; not to interfere in details, 
19; officers of, 49; better boards 
needed, 181; open letter to. Appen- 
dix A. 

Board of education. State, distinguished 
from board of examiners, 4 ; correlate 
of legislature, 5; election by ballot, 
5; desirable, 5; modes of selection, 
S ; lay control, 7 ; powers of, 7-9 ; 
officers of, 7 ; election at large at spe- 
cial election, 8 ; appointive board 
larger than elective, 8 ; authority over 
local board, 9 ; as trustees of private 



benefactions, 9 ; a corporation, 9, 15 ; 
removal of members by State super- 
intendent, 10 ; should not be partisan, 
13 ; its members educators, 14 n. 

Board of examiners, certificates issued by, 
10 ; janitors appointed by, 53 ; State, 
182 ; as text-book committee, 185. 

Board of supervision, 29, 188. 

Book-cases, 83. 

Books, see Library and Text-hooks. 

Business, its struggle with property for 
control of the State, 2 n. 

Business agent, of board, 51. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, quoted, 21. 

Cabinets, folding leaf, 80. 

Centralization, the argument for, 11. 

Certificates, term of beginners, 46 ; edu- 
cation for, 192. 

City, population of, 13 ; public opinion 
in, 19 ; school system, 25 ; variety of 
schools within, 39; no provision for 
reserving school land within, 141 ; the 
unsolved problem of civilization. Ap- 
pendix A. 

City normal school, 193. 

City system of the future, 38, 106. 

Civil service principles, selection of jani- 
tors by, 55. 

Classes, special, 143. 

Clerks, to be appointed by examining 
board, 53. 

Clubs, need of children's, 172 ; mothers', 
168 ; parents', 167 ; teachers', 177. 

Co-education, in State universities, 21; 
arguments for and against, 100-107. 

Comenius, Johan Amos, quoted, 13, 

23. 74- 
Commissioner of Education, United 

States, 3 ; proposition to make. Secre- 
tary of Department of Education, 3 n. 



335 



336 



INDEX 



Construction, pitfalls in, 6i; should be 
fire-proof, 63. 

Convention, Constitutional, 6. 

Correlation of School and Home, 157; 
reasons for, 165. 

County, its decline in importance, 12. 

Course of study, to be made by super- 
intendent, 10; programme of, 149 ; 
requires sufficient books, 89; by 
grade or subjects, 152. 

Curriculum, its extent, 23, 130 n. 

Daily programme, 148 ; see Appendix. 

Democracy, and individual liberty, 1 ; 
needs experts, 5 ; and lay control, 7 ; 
distrusted in the East, 8 ; does not 
vest authority in experts, 37 ; criticised 
in United States Senate, Appendix G. 

Departmental teaching, 71-77. 

Desks, 82. 

Economic society, its present condition, 

"3- 

Economy, in running expenses of large 
buildings, 66. 

Education, a social institution separate 
from Government, 15-17; its extent 
at public cost, 22; its ideals and 
evidences, 22 ; as a continuum, 37 ; 
for life, 38 ; not yet a learned profes- 
sion, 47; compared with law, 47; as 
a process, 48 n. ; an internal change, 
161. 

Education as a profession, 178; com- 
pared with law and medicine, 192 n. 

Educator, as member of school board, 5 ; 
as superintendent, 180. 

Eligible lists, 186. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 48. 

Engineers, to be employed by business 
manager or architect, 52 ; desirability 
of pensions, 55 n. ; to be selected by 
civil service principles, 55, 56. 

Equipment, 78 et seq. 

Evening lectures, 139 ; director of, 140. 

Evening schools, 114 ; teachers of day 
and, 115 n.; trades to be taught in, 
118; opening exercises, 119; class 
programmes, 120; text-books for, 
117 n. 



Examinations, well postponed, rsS; for 
standardizing schools, 160; by State 
board, 183. 

Fatigue, loi ; levels of, 106 n. 
Favoritism, in teachers' examinations, 

184; 
Fire extinguishers, 80. 
Flags, flagpole, 81. 
Flowers, as school equipment, 79. 
Froebel, Heinrich, quoted as to process 

of internal change, 161. 

Globes, as school equipment, 79. 
Goethe, Johann W. v., quoted, 48 n. 
Government, educational enterprises of 

National, 2-5. 
Groups, desirable separation of pupils 

into, 104-105. 

Heating engineer, importance of, 53. 

Hierarchy, the educational, 7; best ap- 
proved, 29. 

High schools, general or specialized, 
108. 

Illiteracy, 23. 
Immorality, 23. 
Individuals, education of, 103. 
Inefficiency, 23. 

Janitors, to be employed by business 
manager or architect, 52; objections 
to political appointment of, 54 ; assist- 
ants to, 54, 55 ; civil service appoint- 
ment of, 55 ; salary schedule, 55 ; de- 
sirability of pensions, 55 n. ; Juvenile 
Court, the, 136. 

Jesus, quoted, 127 n. 

Lawyers, control State, 5; as attorney 
to board of education, 7. 

Laymen, control of school by, 7 ; com- 
mon sense of, 86 ; also. Appendix A. 

Library, 63 ; should consist of, 86 ; two 
kinds of, 92. 

Lighting, 61 ; for evening classes, 84. 

Loyalty, an essential in the creation of 
the professional spirit, 196. 

Luther, Martin, quoted, 58 n. 



INDEX 



337 



McAndrew, William, quoted, 14 n. 
Manual Training, equipment, 81. 
Maxwell, William H., report, 18 n. 

107 n. 
Meals, serving of, in schools, 61. 
Medical inspector, 66 ; duties of, 170. 
Mothers' Clubs, 168. 
Mulcaster, Richard, quoted, 47 n. 

National Bureau of Education, 2. 
Nature, credit due to, 103. 
Nietzsche, Friedrich, quoted, 145 n. 
Nomination to office, 7. 
Normal schools, 191. 
North, the, too dependent upon private 
philanthropy for higher education, 21. 
Nurses, school, 171, 

Office, qualifications for, 7 n. 
Organization, of school, 70-77. 

Parents, opposed to " special " classes, 
112; as teachers of atypical children, 
136 ; and school reports, 155. 

Parents' organizations, 167. 

Paul, quoted, 127 n. 

Penitentiary, an educational institution, 
8. 

Pension, period, 44; janitor's, 57; 
teacher's, 188 ; municipal, igo ; argu- 
ments for. Appendix H. 

Philanthropy, compared with public 
enterprise in education, 20; its true 
function, 21 ; not higher than public 
duty, 24. 

Physician, as medical inspector, 7. 

Principal, as leader, 33; advantages of 
power for, 35, 36 ; resented as super- 
numerary, 36; should know every 
child, 42; duties of, 66; suitable office 
for, 67 ; is the school, 68 ; schedule 
of salary, 69 ; license of, 70. 

Private schools, to be inspected by 
State officers, 8. 

Profession, education as a, 43 ; honor 
in, 87 ; contrasts in, 192 n. 

Promotion, by ability not by age, 108. 

Property, controls the State, i. 

Psychogenetics, evolution of mental 
functions, 102. 



Public opinion, its final importance, 19 ; 

ways of affecting, 170, 
Pupil, the, 98 ; grading of, 108 ; need of 

paid work for, 114; the defective, 

124-127. 

Race stocks, 108 n. 

Records, value of, 146; prescribed, 153; 
must be translated for parents, 154. 

Reform schools, 8 ; need of, 133 ; buildings 
for, 135 ; physicians as heads of, 136. 

Report, of superintendent to board, 10; 
of pupil, 154. 

Reviews, should be frequent and cover- 
ing short periods, 159. 

Rousseau, John Jacques, quoted, 136 n., 
165 n. 

Sabbatical year, n. 44. ^ — —, 

Salary, minimum, 9 ; principles govern- 
ing, 42 ; schedule recommended, 43 ; 
maximum should be before not after 
best years of service, 44; of begin- 
ners', 44 n.; of officers, 49; janitors' 
schedule, 55 ; teachers' schedule, 
Appendix F. 

Scholarship, record of, 153. 

School, a social institution, indepen- 
dent of State, 5; its various forms, 
22 ; freedom of endowed, 24 ; failure 
to understand nature of, 33 ; two op- 
posing types of, 34; how graded and 
classified, 39 ; advantage of large city, 
39 ; limits in size of, 58 ; general con- 
ditions of American, 58; some ac- 
cepted requirements, 59; elementary 
grades in, 64; rank of, 69; schemes 
for organizing, 70-77. " 

School district, 13. 

Schoolhouse, kind of building deter- 
mined by use, 37 ; required rooms, 
41 ; advantages of large school, 42 ; 
importance of good buildings, 52; 
competitive plans, 52; heating, 56; 
construction, 60-65; standard ele- 
mentary, 116; the norm, 142. 

Schools, general and special, need of, 
113; trades in, 118; admission to 
special, 126; parental, 130. , 

Schools for defectives, 123. 



338 



INDEX 



Secretary, 7; duties of, 50; as keeper of 
minutes, 11 ; not a clerk for individual 
members, 50. 

Secret societies, among pupils, 174. 

Separation of sexes, 107. 

Shades, 83. 

Shakespeare, William, quoted, 24 n. 

Social institutions, 163. 

Societies, public education, 168, for 
educators, 177; secret, 174; constitu- 
tion for. Appendix E. 

Society, its institutions, i ; present rapid 
development, 5 ; Constitution of, 6 ; 
future institutions of, 6; majority 
control of laymen, 7 ; claims of, loi. 

South, the, has but few cities, too depen- 
dent upon private philanthropy, 20. 

Special schools, no, 143. 

Stairways, 61. 

State, defined, i ; the individual in the 
free democratic, i ; its modes and 
forms, 2; decentralization and cen- 
tralization, 4; lawyers in control of, 
6. 

State institutions, freedom of, 24. 

State normal school, 191. 

Stenographers, to be appointed by ex- 
amining board, 53. 

Subjects, needing directors, 31. 

Summer schools, 137. 

Superintendent, securing the office of, 
25 ; report of, 27 ; affairs under con- 
trol of, 28 ; essentials to success, 
29 ; as educator, 35 ; assistants classi- 
fied, 187 ; as interpreter between teach- 
ing force and public, 180. 

Superintendent, State, 5; mode of ap- 
pointment, 6 ; subordinates to be 
nominated and controlled by, 7 n. ; 
to name heads of new universities, 
8 n. ; powers of, 9; subordinates 
required, 10. 

Supervision, should be vertical, 31 ; of 



high schools, 31 ; in relation to teacher 
and superintendent, 31 ; never to 
replace teaching, 32. 
Supplies, furnished by State, 91. 

Taxation, how apportioned, 9. 

Taxpayers, temporary interests not 
important, 42. 

Teacher, as independent authority, 34 ; 
promotions in salary, 42 ; importance 
of scholarship in, 43; bad year's 
record not always fair, 45 n. ; removal 
after continued failure, 46; depart- 
mental, 71 ; as disciplinarian, 74 ; 
of defectives, 127; right of appeal, 
196. 

Teachers' council, 194. 

Teaching, as a profession, 190, 192, n. 5, 

Telephone, desirable connections, 80. 

Text-books, purchased by whom, 87; 
most classes lacking in, 89; cost of 
loan outfit, 91 ; listing of, 185-187 ; 
for evening schools, 117. 

Transportation of pupils, 65. 

Truant officers, see Attendance officers. 

Types, of children, 131 ; variations from 
normal, 132. 

Uniformity, economy of, no; of high 
schools, 108; social support of, 112. 

Universal school, purpose of the, 166. 

University, State, control by school 
authorities, 8 ; compare with private, 
20, 24 n.; endowed, freedom of, 
24 n. 

Values, in an age of wealth, 129. 
Ventilation, 63. 

Ward, Lester, F., quoted, 192 n. 
Waterloo, for each one, 180. 
Wealth, of nation, 129. 
World, of the child, 98. 



General Note. — For omitted topics, vide Index, Our Schools, to which Our City 
Schools is, in part, a supplement. 



JUL 17 tiJOS 



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